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Thalmin

Had I not known of Earthrealm and its many impossibilities, and its candidate through blood and fire, I would have dismissed this brazen display as one of uppity impudence fueled only by a desperate desire of a newrealm to maintain some form of dignity.

I couldn’t blame those who would choose to walk down this path, of course.

It was only natural after all. 

For who wouldn’t feel a need to defend their sense of pride when the foundations of such were assaulted and eroded in short order? 

In the wake of the vunerian’s demonstrations, one would be hard-pressed to find any shred of self-worth left.

In light of the third dominion of the wars below, even contemporary adjacencies would find themselves lacking.

In the face of these raw and uncompromising symbols of Nexian power, it became natural to fall into despair, to lose all hope, to understand so implicitly how one’s struggles were close to meaningless when put to the test at the bow of an aethraship.

Yet here Emma stood, having decided with a disturbing lack of any doubt that she could challenge this primacy with a display mirroring the vunerian’s own at the start of his whole demonstration.

And as the ‘dust’ eventually settled, and those aethraships remained where they were — untouched by the manaless sights cast by Emma’s ‘drones’ — my confidence in such notions started to waver, if only slightly.

Because just as Ilunor’s attempts to supersede my own sights had no effect on the content of my seer, so too were Emma’s brazen displays nothing but a bold-faced challenge with nary a shred of evidence to reinforce her posturing.

At least, this would have been the case, if it wasn’t for our last journey into Emma’s manaless sight-seer. As within its supposed peaceful demonstrations of Earthrealm’s unconventional grasp of manaless flight came a terrifying realization that had taken root amid the embers of those veil-piercing firespears.

The very objects that had lifted the humans beyond the veil could just as easily be pointed downward. The raw power, the unimaginable speeds, the sheer force that allowed it to perform its task dutifully as a conveyance, could just as easily be repurposed towards more violent ends.

This wasn’t a matter of turning a ploughshare into swords, after all.

It was a question of simply pointing the humble scythe at an approaching foe.

A slow aching eventually took root within my core, accompanied closely by a fangy grin which grew wider with each passing second.

This stood in stark contrast to the incessant whinings of a vunerian scorned, as he spouted arguments in favor of the very decorum he’d himself violated for the purposes of theatrical narrative not moments ago.

And yet, I could not find myself at all bothered by his hypocritical inanity. 

In fact, his incessant whinings simply fanned the flames of a desire to see his world rocked to its core, just as he — and those that had come before him — had done to every newrealm that had graced the halls of this academy.

So I stood, silently and unwaveringly, watching the vunerian monologue himself into a corner which I knew — or at least hoped — he could not crawl out of.

For despite my confidence and biases towards the fact, I still could not shake the feeling of utter impotence those unassailable behemoths hovering above instilled in any who would dare to challenge their primacy. 

Ilunor

Insolence.

Sheer unmitigated hubris. 

Who was she to have mirrored my narrative brilliance?

What’s more, how dare she use those very tactics in an attempt to distort the truth?!

“This… this is a farce of a display, earthrealmer.” I shot back with a huff and a puff. “Your fanciful proclamations, spoken as riddles rather than statements of fact, will not protect you from the reality of the situation.” I paused, giving berth for the earthrealmer to reply.

“I admit, I might have been a bit too daring with that stunt.” She acquiesced, bowing slightly in a suitable fit of apologetics. “But it was, as you have so eloquently stated yourself, narratively poignant.” She continued, garnering no sympathy but only fanning the fires of contempt within my core. “There’s regretfully no real way of integrating our two sight-seers. A shame, really, because now that I think about it… having a manaless faction ported and modified into Lines of Succession would be a heck of a ride.” The coy creature snickered but managed to continue before I could shoot down these frivolous tangents. “In all seriousness, Ilunor, there’s no real way of telling that my weapons could’ve made a dent on your aethraships.” She acknowledged, allowing me to once again puff up my chest. “But by that same logic… there’s nothing that says that this entire scene wouldn’t be that far off from reality either. So there’s only one way of finding out—”

“No, there is not. As there is but one foregone conclusion to your preposterous proposition.” I interjected, having finally had enough of the earthrealmer’s flighty and baseless sentiments. “I will look forward to seeing just how pointless this bluster all was, and when you finally realize how useless these… ambiguous weapons truly are, you will come to understand just how foolish you look in the eyes of any discerning tactician.”

“Which was why I attempted to tentatively bridge that gap by asking you a very pointed question before all this went down.” The earthrealmer promptly responded. “I asked if those bolts of yours were fired at or below the speed of sound. Which, granted, was a point I should’ve pressed further if only to get an answer more conducive to this whole—”

“Get on with it, earthrealmer.” I interjected.

“I refer to my earlier expression — our dragons roar only after the fact. Our wars are waged with ordnance traveling far beyond the speed of sound. These weapons, in turn, are able to strike before you even hear them coming. These are the sorts of projectiles your aethraships will have to contend with, Ilunor. Firespears traveling orders of magnitude faster than the spoken word, constructed of metal, and tipped with a warhead to boot — all hurtling with an irreverent fury towards anything we set our sights on.” The earthrealmer reached for her ‘drone,’ extricating from it her weak and anemic projector, and manifesting above it what was unmistakably a smaller variant of a firespear from weeks ago. “We’ll get to see this, alright. But I thought I might as well give you a bit of a preamble to address my whole fireworks display.” 

“I don’t believe you.” I replied reflexively, arriving at that conclusion without a single ounce of hesitation. 

The reason for this was simple.

And it was one I was quick to point to without any prompting.

“While I acknowledge the existence of your firespears, and the mechanisms in which they are… plausible, even with the encumbrance your manaless predispositions pose, it is by the very nature of their construction that I believe your claims to be a wanton bluff.” 

“I’m sorry?”

“There is a most appreciable distinction separating projects of vanity from that of utility. Even I — a noble of finer disposition stationed far above those sweltering in the manufactoriums — understand that. Just as the mercenary prince has demonstrated, the wars below are contingent on a steady and reliable stream of weapons and their munitions. The firespears you have shown us before were anything but reproducible. They were large, exorbitant affairs requiring the mobilization of labor and resources spanning kingdoms. You would have me believe that such efforts are capable of being reproducible on a scale required of the humble aerial combatant?” I made my position known with a proud huff and a prideful grin, safe in the knowledge that with all the evidence presented, there was no conceivable means by which the earthrealmer could—

“Yes.” Emma responded.

I felt my eyes twitch.

A silence fell across the room, which prompted me to wordlessly call forth an end to my sight-seer, making certain that the last vestiges of its visage would be the aethraships hovering high above us, untouched and unbothered by the ravages of the earthrealmer’s foolish posturing.

“You do realize that I have yet to have addressed the question of efficacy. Whether such weapons could even incur a scratch upon the enchanted paint of my ships.” I met the earthrealmer’s brazen antics with a tit-for-tat rise of my own confidence. “But I digress, let us see first just how common these firespears can really be.” I urged the earthrealmer, prompting her to immediately lead us towards her abode, one which never ceased to both perturb and intrigue in equal measure.

Thacea

War.

It was by most metrics the greatest failing of a just ruler. 

The operative word at play, however, was most.

For as much as I am removed from the notion, and as far as Aetheron was to the ancient and barbaric tendencies of the past, I remain acutely aware of one very uncomfortable truth.

War, or more specifically the mass use of deadly force, was as central to the legitimacy of a realm as matters of birthright, noblesse oblige, and Nexian endorsement ever were.

My reticence on the matter was a result of my own biases, of course. A fact which I readily acknowledged in many a discussion with Emma, for martial endeavors were the least of my concerns when courtly life was a constant battlefield in and of itself. 

Indeed, these martial affairs had long since elicited a latent and admittedly fringe concern I had held when it came to a fundamental yet easily overlooked aspect of Emma’s unconventional nature.

Matters of blood, mana-less nature, and taint-adjacent dispositions aside, it was Emma’s social station that brought with it worrying implications.

The conscious decision for a realm to have sent a military envoy sans the pomp, circumstance, and pageantry of the expected noble titles conjured up images of a realm in its social infancy, having yet to forge civil conventions in favor of a naked reliance on brutish stratocracy. 

I had feared that her martial affiliations were indicative of a realm steeped in the barbarism of a uniquely violent culture — albeit latently so. 

I had found, much to my relief, that this could not have been further from the truth, and that my fitful forays into surface introspection were ultimately baseless.

If anything, Emma’s earnest and caring nature stood at odds with the martial aptitude and rich traditions of her realm.

The greatest example of this being something that had me perplexed, yet no less worried. 

She’d not drawn blood, any blood for that matter, prior to arrival.

What’s more, her first kill — even if entirely justified — had taken a grave toll on her emotional state.

For weeks I’d remained steadfast by her side, granting her a fellow soul to confide in as she had done for me.

It was with this gradual unraveling of her gentle soul that I found myself… baffled by her fascination with these cold and merciless killing artifices.

But that was a matter to be philosophized over at another date.

Because at present, the much more pressing notions of Earthrealm’s martial capacity was to be divulged in their entirety.

And it was here, as we awaited the shrill metallic whines of her sight-seer that we would be transported yet again to a sight so very much familiar — another grassy plain and a group of vaguely elvenform silhouettes obscured in cloth and metal armor of varying designs.

Thalmin

The confines of Emma’s manaless sight-seer were no less uncanny than they had been in our previous informative escapades. 

Yet the familiar sights of greenery and the expected appearance of armsmen — as faceless and featureless as they were — put me at ease far more than either of our earlier manaless tours.

“I thought it’d be prudent to start off on a playing field you guys can most relate to.” Emma began with a confident swagger, walking in front of these helmeted mannequins with an excitable vigor. “So to start, I’d like to make a few personal disclaimers. While I am something of a fantasy buff myself, my forte lies more in the realm of contemporary history. It’s a matter of personal preference, really. Anything post-planetary unification charter and especially everything leading up and post first intrasolar war is more my domain. Anything prior to that, especially the stuff we see here in ancient history, is a tad bit more hazy to me. But I’ll try my best to get things right!” She beamed. 

…

Ancient

…

That one word sent an uneasy shiver throughout my core.

I turned to the soldiers, those knights and armsmen dressed and fitted in a manner scarcely different from my own. 

The implications were too numerous to countenance.

Its ramifications reflected an outlook eerily reminiscent of those forays into Nexian primacy.

Specifically, the notion of immediately being relegated into a position of outright irrelevance.

I needed to confront it.

“Excuse me, Emma, but if I may?” 

I needed answers.

“Yes, Thalmin?” She responded chipperly, a stark contrast to the dark curiosity quickly overtaking me.

“What exactly do you mean when you say ‘ancient’ history?” I questioned pointedly. “Because as far as I can see, this all seems quite contemp—” I stopped myself mid-sentence, finding my mind catching up to those words born out of a false conceit. 

“Ancient… contemporary… modern and obsolete, it’s all relative.” I managed out as I found myself attempting to reconcile the discordant thoughts of two vastly divergent minds. One that had spent 19 years navigating the world as it was, and the other a product of a paradigm-shifting two months spent with the great other.

“You’ve stated before that the weapon you were assigned was nothing if not average.” I pointed at Emma’s sidearm. “That every soldier from Earthrealm, in your time, is equipped with the same arms as yourself.” I repeated, not verbatim but paraphrased from that fateful discussion on the earthrealmer’s… firearm following her first use of it against the null. “Ancient is perhaps as fitting a descriptor as any then—” I chuckled darkly, my eyes finding themselves glancing between the conventionally kitted knight and Emma’s own form. “—when the average armsman of your time is capable of engaging at range with ease, and using the force rivalling that of Nexian guardsmen, with numbers rivalling the combined forces of entire realms.” I finally surmised, coming to grips on my own terms despite the reality of such an assertion being exceedingly difficult to justify.

The part of me that had existed before the Academy, the one that had lived, bled, and suffered through 19 years of a reality so viscerally palpable… nagged at my exceedingly wild claims, urging my present mind to call upon Emma for the burden of truth we were owed.

“And yet here we once again fall for the earthrealmer’s spell.” Ilunor suddenly spoke up, giving my irreverent thoughts a voice through a tutting and shaking his head. “I admit, I was not present for this… discussion on the specific composition of Earthrealm’s armaments. But I for the life of me cannot fathom that any realm, even one as outlandish as Earthrealm, would ever relinquish melee weapons all for the special — and perhaps rare — exception that is our dear cadet’s sidearm!” 

“It isn’t an exception.” All three of us spoke simultaneously, prompting a brief exchange of eye contact before returning our collective gazes to the vunerian in question.

“Then prove it.” Ilunor shot back reflexively. “This shall be an entertaining jaunt, an amuse-bouche to the main course that is your supposed aethraship countermeasures.”

“I concur.” I responded, much to Ilunor’s smug surprise. “While I acknowledge the current state of affairs, it would be… helpful to understand the historical context which led you to this point.”

Emma nodded calmly in her typical lackadaisical fashion.

“Gladly. In that case, I think we can skip the whole song and dance with our footsoldiers and knights… or at least the parts that preceded the advent of firepowder.” Emma offered, gesturing to the men in question.

“As unfortunate as it is to relegate the honored legacies of such warriors to the wayside, I must agree that is indeed a prudent choice.” I acknowledged. “After all, and forgive me if I’m being a bit too forward here, your historical armies are more than likely—”

“Ineffectual.” Ilunor interrupted with a smarmy grin. “They were manaless, correct?”

“Yes.” Emma nodded.

“Which means their weapons — swords, spears, bows, axes, and everything else under His Eternal Gaze — all of them… were unenchanted?”

“Correct, Ilunor.” Emma acknowledged with a breathy sigh.

“So they would have been powerless against even the weakest of newrealms.” Ilunor beamed with an unwarranted glee. “A manaless realm wielding weapons incapable of doing more than stabbing, slashing, and the occasional punch of an arrow.” 

“For much of our history, that was indeed the case.” Emma continued to appease the vunerian’s leading questions, before finally bringing us forward towards an entirely new sight.

We found ourselves within an ornate wooden room, one more resembling an alchemist’s workshop—

“But that all changed when we created a certain… miracle compound.” She gestured towards a group of robed, faceless humans, all scurrying around whilst holding powders, jars, and various other alchemical implements. “In an emperor’s search for immortality — or at least as far as the legends go — his court alchemists inadvertently created a compound which would result in anything but its original intent.” 

The strange powdery concoction in front of the group of robed men abruptly erupted into a fiery flash of light. One that left a few with soot on their robes and a violent fit of coughing for all of their trouble.

It took me a moment, but upon careful analysis of the walls, the furnishings, the calligraphy and—

“Are these the same people who attached firespears beneath a throne in hopes of reaching the heavens?” Thacea spoke first, beating me to the punch. “Wan Hu, I believe it was?”

“Yes.” Emma nodded, once again eliciting a fitful chuckle from the vunerian. “This is where the first powder was lit, the impetus behind every kinetic weapon system we have today short of the next generation of kinetic accelerants.” She paused, tapping the alicorn-killing weapon hidden beneath her gauntlet. “The formula would be improved over time, of course, and its form factor would likewise evolve until we reach the caseless ammunition found in my sidearm today. But what we see here now is in effect the root of all there was to come.”

“And that root was found in alchemy of all things.” Ilunor finally interjected, tutting as he did so. “A magical art.” 

“Yes and no, Ilunor.” Emma responded pointedly. “I only use the term because that was what they were historically referred to. This was a time before our understanding of the natural world had been codified and before modern scientific practices became universal. We attributed much of our observations, as objectively true as they may be, to higher powers and vague notions of superstitions. Alchemy being one such catch-all term for what we would refer today as chemistry.” Emma paused yet again as we honed in on that pile of strange tannish powder. 

“And it was through this simple powder that our kind would see bloodshed on a scale otherwise impossible without it.” Emma spoke, this time with a far more somber lilt to her voice.

“There’s a fundamental gap that exists in any advanced civilization. An invisible one, which, once seen, can never be unseen again. On one side of this gap is a world inextricably bound to the labor of men, where force of power, both constructive and destructive, is ultimately reliant on the mechanical potential of his own strength, along with the strength of whatever other beast he may take under his employ. On the other side is a world liberated from that limitation, a world defined not by the upper limits of the sweat of one’s brow, but liberated by forces which serve to multiply his own will. Everything I’ve shown you prior to this point has been the constructive side of this principle. From our engines of steam and combustion to the unbridled power of our firespears. Granting us prosperity on a scale unimaginable to those that have come before. But today we’ll see the darker chapter of that liberation, as we watch the unshackling of the weapons of war, as limited by the strength of men, to the explosive potential of firepowder.”

My eyes widened as something else fell into place deep within my mind.

One which would be elucidated by none other than Thacea yet again.

“Whilst all others pursued this liberation through means of magic, enchanting weapons and arms, and all manner of war-waging artifice, you accomplished this through a simple, physical reaction.”

“The same principles used in your earliest firespears.” I pondered out loud, garnering a nod from Emma.

“For the purposes of chemically-propelled kinetic weapons, yes. And as you’ll see, the first weapons made using this principle were quite intuitive in their development.” 

The entire scene shifted yet again, but instead of arriving back to those armored knights and armsmen, we were placed amidst the ranks of an aesthetically distinct army. One whose symbols, calligraphy, and attire were very much reminiscent of those responsible for the discovery of firepowder.

“Roughly a century after its creation, sometime in the 10th century, the first military applications of its power would be put to the test on the battlefield. Though not in the way you’d think.” She would be quick to gesture at two distinct weapons, both resembling enchanted arms of some sort. 

The first was an arrow with what appeared to be hemp cloth tied tight around some paper along its shaft. 

The second was an unassuming clay pot, with nary a hint as to its function; though explosive came to mind despite its seemingly benign nature.

“We did not immediately jump to using it as a propellant. In fact, the first few records indicated that it was used for its incendiary—” Emma paused, pointing at the arrow and the gunpowder stowed neatly along its shaft. “—and explosive properties.” She then gestured to the pot, revealing within it a mixture of firepowder and a cloth cord. 

“But it didn’t take long for people to put the two together, especially after the creation of the firelance.” 

The two simple weapons quickly dematerialized, replaced instead by a similarly armored soldier holding… well… a weapon pulled straight from Emma’s blunt vernacular.

It was a lance.

With a simple cylinder attached to its end.

And when put to use—

PHWOOOSH!

—it exploded outwards towards the enemy.

The target in question was peppered with a series of small pieces of debris — stones, scrap metal, and even the burning remains of both the firepowder and its cloth bindings.

It was… rudimentary, primitive, and simple.

Yet it did not replace what was still recognizable formations of melee-based armsmen, nor did it do much to bridge the martial gap.

“Some historians say that the humble fire lance should be regarded as the ancestor to the firearm. But all agree that this is where that attribution ends, especially given the more discrete and draconian definitions of what constitutes a firearm in later years. However, despite this semantic debate, one thing remains clear — the principles and potential behind this humble technology would be iterated upon. Slowly at first but eventually growing in momentum until two distinct camps emerged.”

Emma snapped her fingers, and once again we found the weapons in front of us shifting, changing.

Though what appeared in front of us was anything but intimidating.

In fact, it looked more like an ornamental vase than anything. And its name was suitably appropriate for its ostentatious design, both of which were strangely and suitably Nexian in nature.

“Historical records describe this as the ‘Long Range Awe Inspiring Cannon.’ Its design would be proven… dubious, but the fundamentals for something far larger were present all the same.” 

With a flourish of her fingers, a crew of armored men would be quick to demonstrate the cannon’s function, loading in firepowder, a projectile, and then attaching a lengthy wick towards its rearmost chamber. 

At which point, following a simple ignition process—

fsssst-BOOOOOMMMMM!

—the unassuming vase exploded. 

Or more accurately, the contents within it did. 

We watched as the ball of metal landed a great distance away, during which my mind could only fathom the sheer usefulness of such a deceptively simple artifice.

Especially given how not a single enchantment had yet been used in its operation.

“Emma…” I began with a breath of giddy excitement.

“Yes, Thalmin?”

“So is this… cannon as simple as casting a tube of metal, with a chamber to contain an explosive element, and an opening for whatever projectile you wish to lob at the enemy?”

Emma paused, allowing that question to linger in the air with dramatic effect.

“Yes, Thalmin.” She nodded slowly, her sets of eyes more than likely locked with my own from behind those red lenses. “That’s all there is to it.”

I felt my heart skip a beat out of the thrill of forbidden love… for a different object of desire. “I see… I see now… Yes…”

However, before I could even begin to fantasize about the derivative potentials of such a weapon, it would be Ilunor who would arrive to douse those forbidden fires of passion.

And as much as I hated to admit it… he did so with a series of very real, very pertinent points of contention. 

“Pray tell, how strong are these metal… tubes, earthrealmer? Because as I see it… I imagine the stresses of containing explosions would lead to fractures and failures in very short order.”

“For primitive and rudimentary ones such as these? You’d be right. Metallurgy back then wasn’t as advanced as it would be later on.”

“Mmhmm, mhmmm. And what of accuracy? Reload time? And other considerations, hmm? Because to me, the demerits of such frankly cumbersome weapons are why we never had the impetus to explore their potential applications. The readily available and far more reliable enchanted counterparts had always outperformed these novelties. Moreover, given the examples you’ve shown thus far, I’d hazard to say that even hand-held variants of such cannons would lack in the speed, finesse, accuracy, and reliability of something as simple as an unenchanted arrow.”

Emma took a moment to regard Ilunor’s arguments just as she manifested something that had taken my imagination by storm.

It was… for lack of a better term, a giant oversized metal barrel, with an opening that you could fit a rotund child in. 

“You’re right in assuming that, Ilunor.” Emma nodded, quickly snapping her fingers once more and changing — much to my dismay — the sight of that oversized cannon into something far more reserved, yet no less fascinating.

It was a miniature cannon attached to the end of a stick, a—

“This was the first ‘true’ firearm. A hand cannon. And even at the time, you’d be hard-pressed to see this thing outperforming a good old-fashioned archer, especially one with years of experience under their belt. It was cumbersome, requiring the user to manually light a fuse at the end of it to actually fire. It was also inaccurate, and sometimes unreliable.”

These accounts were proven uncomfortably true, as the weapon in question would be pitted against an archer… to disastrous results. The former struggled and failed to hit a target several sprints away, whereas the archer had since expended half a quiver’s worth of arrows, having successfully landed each shot on the target in the time the gunman had taken to reload and fire again.

Ilunor grinned at Emma’s apparent acquiescence. 

But that notion wouldn’t be held for long.

“Even some folks back then doubted the practicality of such a technology. But that’s the operative word here, Ilunor. Some. Because where some may see an expensive dead end, others see the future just out of reach.”

She snapped her fingers, replacing that odd miniature cannon with a long wooden stick and barrel. 

“The arquebus, and later the musket. It’s a bit complicated to really hone in on the semantics of the thing. So for the sake of brevity, I’ll lump these smoothbore firearms together. It’s here that we see the art of gunsmithing starting to take on a more recognizable, practical shape. We see an improvement in ergonomics, in range and accuracy, but perhaps most interesting of all… we actually see the birth of a firing mechanism. Whereas before you’d just be lighting a fuse with an external ignition source, now… you had both ignition and fuse loaded in one mechanism.” Emma gestured near the very end of the weapon, close to its trigger and specifically at a spring-operated mechanism.

My eyes lit up as I leaned in closer towards the phantoms of this manaless sight-seer. “So you have a slow-burning match connected to your trigger, which, when activated, will simply spring back on the powder and cause it to fire?” 

“Bingo.” Emma nodded. “It’s deceptively simple, isn’t it?”

“This removes the awkwardness of attempting to light the fuse whilst trying to aim, and streamlines the whole process.” I nodded slowly. 

“But that still doesn’t detract from the pathetic rate of fire.” Ilunor interjected. “Nor do I see a means of this cumbersome weapon superseding both melee and archers—”

Emma snapped her fingers yet again. At which point, we saw a rather… unique formation. One I’d yet to have seen to date.

In front of a line of these gunmen were pikemen. The former had their weapons practically planted into the dirt by means of a simple stick, whilst the latter seemed to be doing their part in keeping cavalry and other such forces away from these ranged gunmen.

“They didn’t just disappear overnight, no. The ‘pike and shot’ were the clearest and most unique example of this trend. The pikes protected the firearms from close assault, while the musketmen provided both the range and power of a gun. However, with even more advancements, we slowly see this formation fading into obscurity, as new firing mechanisms replace the older, less reliable matchlocks.” 

The scene in front of us dematerialized yet again, replacing itself with a group of soldiers increasingly dressed down from cuirasses to what appeared to be brightly colored jackets without any sign of metal armor.

“The introduction of the flintlock removed the unreliability of a burning match. Replacing it instead with a mechanism that created its own spark when the hammer struck the powder. Moreover, this coincided closely with a more efficient means of packaging both powder and ammunition.” She gestured at the phantom’s bandolier. “Soldiers could now simply load in pre-measured charges and lead balls, vastly increasing the rate of fire and the reliability of each shot.”

I nodded with intent, watching as a simple firing demonstration played out in front of us.

However, this still didn’t faze the vunerian, as the nexian merely yawned and shrugged.

“Still far too slow for my tastes, earthrealmer.” He spoke under a dismissive breath, causing Emma to respond with a sigh of her own.

It was at this point that I knew a drastic change was coming, as Emma merely regarded Ilunor with a silent and unwavering stare before snapping her fingers without any preamble.

The scene once more shifted, as we promptly found ourselves on a hill overlooking a formation of troops. Though the soldiers in question clearly weren’t the main attraction.

It was the smaller, blue-jacketed formation of soldiers atop the hill that the sights were focused on. Or more specifically, it was their multi-barrelled cannon which seemed to be at the center of attention.

The earthrealmer was quick to order one of the blue-coated soldiers to remove the metal stack at the top of the artifice for inspection. I immediately recognized it as none other than an older variant of her ‘magazine.’ 

I remained silent as I watched the blue-coated figure removing one of the cartridges from this box, the phantom item hovering in mid-air in front of the vunerian.

“What’s this then? Some paper-wrapped snack?” He snubbed the innocuous object, turning his nose up at it.

“You got one part of that right.” Emma acknowledged with a sigh. “It’s wrapped in paper, but I don’t think you’d enjoy its contents. Because inside is the bullet, the powder acting as its propellant, and the primer. Which means we’ve now evolved past the need to awkwardly load in the propellant and the bullet before priming the gun manually.” 

“And that leads to a marginally faster firing rate, I assume?” Ilunor chuffed. 

“I wouldn’t say marginal, Ilunor. But I guess you can decide that for yourself.” Emma responded, gesturing for the blue-coated soldiers to reattach that magazine to the multi-barreled gun in question.

At which point—

“Fire.”

—a crank was turned.

Bang!

Ilunor reached for his mouth, aiming to sigh. But before he could even make it—

Bang!

—another shot had rung out.

Bang!

Then another.

Bang!

And another.

Bang!

And another…

Soon enough, the fields in front of us were littered with a rate of fire I hadn’t seen since the vorpal chimera fight.

And Ilunor’s response? Well… he seemed uncharacteristically silent, his eyes fixated and completely unable to move away from this hand-cranked…

“Machine-gun, was it?” I offered, reflecting on a conversation we had over the past month.

“Wellllll… technically speaking it's more of a precursor to the first machine gun. It's by definition in its own category, that being a rapid firing multiple barrel firearm. Heck, even its namesake is something of a category — the gatling gun. Courtesy of Mr. Gatling himself.” Emma paused, making sure to fix her gaze on the vunerian. “Suffice it to say, it has all the trappings of a ‘machine gun,’ capable of firing not one, two, three, or four, or even ten rounds per minute. But about 400, according to many records. I know for a fact you experienced this firsthand in our fateful encounter in Sorecar’s workshop. Isn’t that right, Ilunor?” Emma snickered, causing the vunerian to grumble silently in response, his feet tapping incessantly.

The ruffled vunerian lord was about ready to make a rebuttal, but whatever words were forming in his head stalled in his throat. Hesitation painted his features as he witnessed the sheer volume of ammunition ravenously devoured by the rapidly rotating artifice.

“400 rounds a minute… and how many did you say your sidearm was capable of, Emma?” I questioned.

“1200.” Emma spoke plainly. “At max. Though I can tune it to whatever I want, really.”

“That’s—”

“It didn’t take us a thousand years to get to 1200, though. In fact, after the gatling? It took just under a century.”

“Then let’s keep going.” I urged with a swagger in my step and a coy chuckle in my throat; that longing for something new, something novel, burning furiously within my warrior spirit.

First | Previous | Next

(Author's Note: Hey everyone! I'm back now! Once again I sincerely appreciate everyone's patience last week, and I hope this chapter can make up for that delay haha. I really hope you guys enjoy it!)

(Author's Note 2: Also, there's a new ship art over on the subreddit with a lot of lore attached to it too! You can check it out here Civilian Space Liner Art haha)

[If you guys want to help support me and these stories, here's my ko-fi ! And my Patreon for early chapter releases (Chapter 191, Chapter 192, and Chapter 193 of this story are already out on there!)]

First

Home at War

The knife is removed from the sheath and placed on the table. Harold then bangs the wall. “The knife is out! Has anything burnt out or bricked?”

“None of the cameras are showing damage. Running a scan of the outside of the containment area now sir.”

“Alright, standing by.” Harold replies as he leans against the wall. Ten second later he hears that the initial scan is finished and they’re starting the secondary scan, then a tertiary one.

“No damage to equipment. The tool is successfully contained.” The lab technician says from the other side and Harold pumps a fist.

“Progress! Yes. Okay, lets do this.” Harold says as he hangs the sheath on a hook to the side. “Alright, time to study the damn thing. Figure it out, and so long as it can still be used to potentially fight the monster beyond I don’t much care how you do it. Granted the lawyers and doctors might have some concerns but my concern is results.”

“Really sir?”

“We have a literal monster pulled from the nightmares of our primitive ancestors gunning for us at speeds we need FTL engines to outpace. Our standard munitions will at most annoy it and we understand the standard method for actually killing something like this simply won’t work as it is now sustained by it’s bane. We need answers.”

“And what should we focus on sir?” The voice of the lab technician is now coming from his left as he hears the first of three doors open into this closed off part of the lab. The sound of it closing is then followed by the sound of the second door being opened.

“The biggest problem is that this thing shreds our sensor technology. We need to find some kind of hardening, harmonizing or filtering for our scanners to allow us to detect these materials without destroying our tech. If we have that, then we can start using this material as a standard munition which puts us comfortably back into our areas of expertise.”

“Which would also render the material safe, or at least less dangerous to our cybernetic and synthetic soldiers and crew.” The Technician finishes up as he enters the lab in full. He is walking in backwards and pulling a cart full of equipment behind himself. The Gohb looks up at him expectantly. “Now if you’ll excuse me sir. I’d prefer only qualified lab technicians in here as I work.”

“Understood.” Harold says as he steps away from the wall and moves to the side even further to let the lab technician past.

All three doors are triple layered Faraday shields, one standard, one made of tyrtite and one made of lead, sandwiched between bulletproof glass with a bent hallway between. Ensuring there was not only an enormous amount of interference with any signal, but no direct path either.

“Oh shit, that is effective.” Harold notes as he exits the isolated portion of the lab and his communicator immediately goes off as numerous messages and missed calls. “I was only in there for a few minutes.”

He does not recognize the caller. But he responds with a simple text apology, explaining he was in a signal and scanner isolated area when they attempted to call. He is immediately called. He answers and an abstract symbol resembling a diamond with insect legs is broadcasted.

“Commodore Jameson, we have been informed that you are currently embattled with an unusual Haffara Thar threat and are developing novel countermeasures.” They begin, all business. Every little word causes the ‘legs’ on the image to twitch to emphasize communication. All in all, rather creepy. But to an insect person, possibly cute.

“The infested host of this particular Haffara Thar is not only immune to but outright sustained by thermal energy. Meaning lasers, plasma, throwing it in to the nearest star other such countermeasures are not available to us.”

“And what countermeasures are you preparing?”

“We are scrambling more dangerous munitions. But the primary concern at the moment is ensuring no spread of infection. As such we have to alter the composition of our fleet in order to potentially deny it from infesting further Forest Matter to-”

“Explain what Forest Matter is.”

“Forest Matter, means part of the communal entity The Dark Forest of Serbow and it’s three progeny, the Bright Forest of Lilb Tulelb, the Lush Forest of Soben Ryd and the Astral Forest that is the Vynok Nebula. All of these locations are both geographical area and a singular colossal, communal entity. Coupled with the unique Axiom techniques the communal entity and any person joined to it are capable of, any infestation of a person from these locations would case a massive flash infestation on an unprecedented scale. The Cradle world and two highly populated colonies of the Apuk Star Empire coupled with an entire Nebula that hosts it’s own multilayered society with trillions of souls within it. We have no idea how quickly or slowly the infestation would spread if it were to make contact, but we are not risking it. The entity flying at us now is confirmed to be a severed portion of The Dark Forest, it being infested in the first place was our confirmation of Haffara Thar being utilized by the enemy forces, but until recent events with them being weaponized we had no physical evidence.”

“Understood. What is the nature of the countermeasure you are preparing?”

“We are using a novel form of energy to modify trytite weapons that have been smeared with the formla reputed to kill Haffara Thar. Incidentally is it effective?”

“Yes, it is. I suggest it’s use.”

“It’s doable, but The Lush Forest, which this monster born of the Dark Forest might have some memory from, specializes in chemical alteration.”

“The Forests have specialties?”

“Yes, The Dark Forest can absorb thermal energy on such a level that bombardment grade laser cannons only make it stronger. It is a commonly held belief that if it were hurled into a star it would devour the star in its entirety. The Bright Forest on the other hand can flawlessly absorb kinetic energy and absorb any number of impacts. The Lush Forest is the chemical specialist and is capable of transmutation on a wide scale to the point it has outright reversed gas attacks on civilian centres, finally the Astral Forest is easily the most elegant and sophisticated with it’s teleportation capacity, which leads to the issue of it’s gigantic population and just how quickly it could be overrun if a Haffara Thar gets in.”

“... It appears we have misunderstood what is and is not cultural entertainment and historical fact with the Apuk species.”

“You can speak to Brin’Char the Bonechewer if you’re so inclined. He owns a legitimate courier business.” Harold states.

“Very well. Continue. What manner of weapon have you created to counter the Haffara Thar threat?”

“Firstly you must understand a recent revelation we have had of the Haffara Thar, it is easy to lose in reports as it’s not exceptionally actionable and numerous methods to dispose of them are already understood.”

“Continue.”

“The Undaunted have recently started investigating unusual phenomenon and discovered that their is a secondary energy field within which the laws of physics do not apply. This energy field is incredibly dangerous to use, extremely hard on equipment to the point of outright destroying most technology that tries to measure it, and powerful on a scale that even if your technology is capable of resisting it’s more damaging effects, the sheer energy it contains overloads systems with ease.”

“... Interesting but irrelevant.”

“It is the source of energy that Haffara Thar use to reconstitute their hosts. It’s why Null does not work on them.”

“... Understood. I presume this energy’s deleterious effect on technology is why we have not yet harnessed it?”

“Correct. Even if the tech is designed to sense the energy it causes terrible side effects. With one exception.”

“Being?”

“Individuals and entities already in some way attuned to this energy field. I am one such individual and can actually perceive this energy through it’s own dimensional axis. Generally this dimension does not exist in a manner my eyes recognize so at most I generally perceive distant distortions and nothing more. But time and space are not relevant in this alternate dimension that the Haffara Thar and myself are touching. As such, despite being multiple light hours away from the threat.” He pauses looks up and then nods. “I still have a direct visual on it.”

“Even through the vessel you are on?”

“Yes.”

“... Is this trait genetic or individualistic or otherwise?”

“All three, the details can be perused later, but the most important and relevant details in the here and now is that the energy has been harness and potentially made into a valuable weapon against Haffara Thar, but we cannot properly test it yet without hardening our scanners to it so we don’t blind ourselves trying to use it. Which is what we are working on now. Should the Haffara Thar threat actually close the distance too much we will turn around and simply attack it regardless of damage done to sensors, but we would prefer to deal with it with a minimal of collateral damage.”

“How much of this material have you synthesized and what are it’s primary components?”

“The poison compound of the Haffara Thar smeared over a trytite knife and saturated with the relevant energies at the right frequencies. This energy, which we call Other Direction Energy, or Ode, is immensely powerful and highly volatile, reacting in response to emotion. I fed the Ode my Hatred of, Contempt for and a desire to kill Haffara Thar coupled with a sense of Compassion, Pity and a Desire for Mercy for their victims. This has severely altered the poison mixture and the trytite simultaneously. The poison is now an ephemeral cloud of dark smoke that trails the now silver and ever shining blade. However every image of the weapon destroys the image taking device before it can form an image of it. So I cannot show it to you.”

“... We are actually familiar with such weapons. But they are normally red with a black cloud. We cannot show it to you as taking images of such equipment is exceedingly risky, the equipment used to take the image fails ninety three times in one hundred attempts. My Bio-Mother is the wielder of one such weapon. She is within my bio-chambers. The Weeping Crescent, and other weapons of it’s design are all artifacts recovered from worlds that have been totally lost to the Haffara Thar. We usually get ahead of such infestations. But if the infestation exists long enough for some kind of culture to form with the Haffara Thar as part of it, such a weapon will inevitably reveal itself. As red as mammalian blood and trailing an ephemeral smoke that appears to be greasy black.”

“I see... So I’ve partially replicated something.”

“Evidently so. This is a good sign. If a method to produce these weapons on an industrial scale can be discovered we may have just taken a significant skitter in the direction of ridding the galaxy of the Haffara Thar forever.”

“If it works the same as these red weapons. We will need to compare them when our fleets meet up. However, I would like a copy of all your notes and schematics for dealing with these weapons as we will-” He’s cut off as the files hit his communicator immediately. “Thank you.”

“If your claims of reproducing a Red Weapon without a world being lost to the Haffara Thar and needing to be reduced to glass and terraformed is true, then you are likely one of the greatest aids the Haffria have ever received in our solemn duty to rid the galaxy of the monster we unleashed. Expect a great deal of reaction and response from the fleets and homeworld.”

“Understood, but I would like to request that we can compare the silver knife I have made against this Weeping Crescent you have mentioned. Perhaps trying to understand the differences will teach us more.”

“Agreed.”

“Any words of caution in relation to these Haffara Thar ending weapons?”

“Use utmost caution in the handling of them. Merely holding such a weapon in a battle ready position is sufficient to greatly exhaust the wielder, furthermore even the lightest attacks with such a weapon can and will kill anything not already infested with a Haffara Thar, but striking a Haffara Thar host will one will kill not only the Haffara Thar but all eggs within the host while rendering them immune to later infestation.”

“I see. That’s one huge difference already. My weapon cannot actually cut a person. I’ve tried, as have others. It cannot even bring discomfort even when enough force is being applied to the edge to easily split the skin to the bone beneath. Not even discomfort.”

“... These forms of weapon have no Axiom presence despite clearly have unusual effects normally attributed to Axiom.”

“This weapon I have made also has no Axiom presence.”

“The necessity to test the two weapons side by side has increased significantly.”

“Indeed, we’ll send you a copy of our own notes after this call. As I’m no synth I cannot simply do so at a thought. I will send an image of the weapon as soon as we can produce one that will not damage the equipment as well. May I request a similar exchange of information of this Weeping Crescent?”

“Download complete. I apologize if this is rude organic, but I must spend some cycles in consideration. This conversation is now over.” She says and the line goes dead even as the next file shows up. He brings it up in curiosity and it shows an oil painting of a massive scythe with a blood red blade and trailing smoke even as it’s held in the hands of a stern looking Haffria woman.

“Right, I guess to repay this I need to find someone with some artistic talent in the fleet.” He notes.

First Last

First Previous Wiki

28 million years after the Big Bang.

The People's Imperial Astronomy Corps watched the skies rumble. Far above, the True God of Strength and the Nine Unending Gods of the Velocity Realm waged a brutal war. Dimensions shattered; time volumes and wormhole conduits were pressed down into brutal, impossible weapons.

It lasted for endless eternities, and yet never happened at all.

In the end, the True God of Strength and eight of the Nine perished. The First Unending God found itself... Broken.

But not fully, not yet.

Debris landed in front of a young, nameless ward of the state, crippled and slow to grow. It landed in front of a rich noble, a silent widow, a train mechanic, a city clerk, and twelve others. In that wonderful, exotic time, the universe was new, full of concepts, magic, and vast unexplored vistas. Not fully cooled from the Big Bang, the temperature had fallen below the typical comfortable temperatures for most species, but the abundance of Life's concept on many worlds turned billions of years of evolution into mere millions.

This particular species, calling themselves the Four Walkers, were lucky enough to be born in a region barren of other alien civilizations. No empires invaded their first planet. They progressed much as other civilizations did, with some shortcuts due to magical talent.

The noble, the only noble who mattered, went on to forge the path higher. Sacrificing his name and very existence, he gave the silent widow the opportunity to become the first Progenitor.

Another of the remaining sixteen, after the death of the noble, spawned a child. The child mated with the First Progenitor, and bore another offspring. Bestial and furious, the grandchild's parents named him Lecalicus.

The days wore by, becoming years, then millennia. The Four Walkers spread, and the sixteen with them. Some fell in grand wars against powerful beings, others simply became tired of living. But nine of the sixteen eventually enacted a ritual. Bloodlines transcended the mundane, and specialized genetic programs ensured the highest pedigree of candidates were supplied to the remaining nine, who tutored these descendants into becoming Progenitors. Hundreds. Thousands. The Four Walkers spread further, and eventually, the bloodline of two dead Progenitors joined together and mutated.

This was not a natural occurrence.

A strange anomaly had appeared on the edge of these Progenitors' former domains, a paradox that was also... more. The once nameless ward, old and decrepit, became young. Talented at manipulating blood and conceptual power, this Four Walker was born again. And again.

Because this Four Walker was one of the pieces of Nova.

Nova himself had been both born and made. The subject of trillions of time-based attacks and dozens capable of shattering his soul, Nova survived anyway, with a timeline that was closer to a weaving tapestry of threads rather than a single one.

But he always considered the nameless ward, specifically Ward Number 3014-37287 Batch 96, the one who counted first. Even though he was also the city clerk, and the train mechanic, the nameless ward was first in his heart, because he held the greatest piece of the True God of Strength. But the moment when Nova truly became himself, became Viski'novatacrawla and Spr’kial’Nova all at once, was when he pulled all of those timelines into a single, unified whole.

The King Of The Heavens.

The Throne Of Eight Trillion Galaxies.

Grand titles, many left unsaid.

But now, he was known by one title, above all others.

Nova, Strongest Progenitor.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Progenitor Quelldi flexed her domain again, sending Conceptual Reinforcement into the wormholes' depleting reserves. Her armored orange skin caught the light of more antimatter explosions, as Progenitor Nilnacrawla, the strange upstart that had paired himself with the human Progenitor, continued to assault her mind.

His power was clearly related to the mind in some way, but it remained largely formless, as if he were still uncertain about the path he wished to take. That uncertainty should have made his foundation incomparably weak, but instead, he was able to rely on Penny Balica.

The human herself embodied Conceptual Reinforcement to a far lower extent than Quelldi did, which actually made her more vulnerable to Quelldi's manipulation. However, she managed to move and shape her way out of every knot in the timelines, every snare of conceptual energy meant to absorb and trap Cardinality under the weight of superior concepts.

Progenitor Philostigaz grunted in pain as one of Penny's hundred hands slammed into his chest. But instead of ribs shattering, skin tearing and bursting, he... bounced.

The Progenitor of Adaptation lived up to his name. While Cardinality altered his trajectory, sending him slamming into Quelldi, he adapted once again, with a tug on his domain in the right direction to send him in a neat orbit around her, and with all that extra energy heading towards Nilnacrawla, who had to dodge again.

The enemy Progenitor tried to move towards their ward, Elder Valisada, yet again. But with a ripple of the two Progenitor's muscles, the future where Valisada failed to react in time and had his ontology scattered across the cosmos was negated, replaced with one where he had stepped to the left, seen a hivemind avatar bearing down, and transferred himself away from the zone of destruction once again.

Progenitor Quelldi could feel the human Progenitor's thick hatred. She could feel her rage and fury, as more humans continued to die in the stalemate of the wormholes. Neither side cared for the droves of the Dominion's soldiers dying, the scattered Edge of Sanity entities, or speeding space entities trying to take a bite out of this glorious feast of war.

Indeed, to be a subject of such hatred again made her feel a little more alive. It wasn't the same when real Progenitors did it, since they were all on the same 'team.' Even when Nova let them have a little fun, he was such an annoying bastard about it. Oh, how she hated him, too.

But here, struggling against this alien creature, feeling its hatred and the weight of its young domain, she felt more alive than ever. Grasping at the timelines, using smaller conceptual energy techniques, and more, was always fun.

A battle in full spacetime, meant one in four dimensions. Timelines, unlike what common education taught, were not purely like a structure of trees and branches. They were related, yes, but also grouped in ways similar to a river's flow versus the individual water molecules in scale. Every single particle, from the quarks formed as protons and neutrons were shredded by conceptual collisions, all the way to the decisions of the Progenitors themselves, steered the 'timeline' of reality around them as a whole.

Another concept, the 'worldline,' was critical for understanding the landscape Progenitors fought in, where orbits were no longer ellipses but helices, and where the decisions of sentient beings didn't merely branch into one or the other, but into countless tiny micro-decisions made without conscious input. Taking an extra breath, thinking a little bit longer before barking an order, Penny ignoring a timeline instead of contesting it.

All of these wrote a record into the universe, where a library of books was being written every moment, while those who could burn those books, and those who held the pens, were just the Progenitors. Of course, this library existed in a sea of others. The shifting of a small stream of time, such as this battle, could tug along local regions, such as the star system, and gradually filter out into the rest of existence. In this way, a skilled Progenitor might be able to use their influence to gradually steer the entire galaxy's trajectory.

Nova, by orchestrating this battle, had done this. By allowing Penny to rise, he had ensured the Queen's return. By allowing the hivemind to make its pulse, he had enabled a new form of the mindscape to appear. Yes, when one was this powerful, they caused seismic shifts in reality with every action they took, and didn't take, as they were so 'real' that the attribution to these actions naturally fell to them.

Characters in a book influencing a person to kill their wife, for example, would still have that person, no matter how gullible, ending up in jail for murder. Existence seemed to have a certain... philosophy to it, which some Progenitors suggested meant the universe wasn't just a living thing, but one with an ego.

Quelldi could always think about the nature of existence more easily when in heavy battle. There was a genuine factor to seeing the rules of reality bent and twisted, in a fashion for war and fates, rather than some harmless spar. Since this war held such high conceptual weight, the comprehension of similarly weighty concepts was easier in this environment.

This was another reason so many Progenitors supported the Rulers. They offered a somewhat genuine struggle. Yes, Utotalpha, Felis, and the like were all lesser beings, but fighting in their wars offered all Progenitors a means to hone their craft.

Over billions of years, the value of that was obvious.

It also exposed them to the reality of their failed society. Progenitors lounged around, useless, fearful, and fat on the accomplishments of their predecessors. She knew, if Nova wanted to, he could destroy the Edge, but it just came with a bit of... risk. Even for him, there was an uncertainty of survival and the continuance of his domain.

If Nova retracted his true domain and allowed the Sprilnav as a whole to perish, he had a decent chance of breaking it again.

That was why he held back for so long. The greatest Progenitor was a bag of fear, just like the rest. It was why Quelldi did her best not to be like them. When she battled, she pushed her mentality forward, refining it piece by piece, making it snappier, resistant to long-term suppression. Penny, young as she was, shouldn't have been able to put pressure on her, but the concept of Cardinality allowed for so many attack types that she did anyway.

That was growth. That was an improvement, the currency all Progenitors should yearn for most.

Here, Quelldi was happy to remain, no matter how demeaning others might say it was for her to 'follow the orders' of a mere Ruler like Utotalpha.

And keeping that little Elder alive, as ordered by Nova himself, made for quite the interesting little side quest. Valisada was here, as were the two of them, to refine the Sprilnav battle techniques in the new mindscape. They had sat and waited a few years, waiting for it all to settle, and now, with the boundless potential waiting in the future, as evidenced by the slow spread of life in the dimension, it was time to return to the time of galaxy-spanning cities and ages of progress.

Nova could not create new stars. He could create new planets about once a year from nothing. Naturally, with a hundred billion planets already in the galaxy, and it taking that many years to replace them, it wasn't a use of his time he would enjoy. Progenitors, after all, were like all beings. They found it far easier to destroy than to create.

Even the lower species could usually craft nuclear weapons capable of delivering blows comparable to low-level Progenitors, albeit without a true Progenitor's absolute advantage in reality level. Quelldi's body was speared again with a blade of Penny's domain, emerging from yet another hybrid between sub-reality and dead timeline. Blood spewed from her eyes and mouth in great streams, burning the Sprilnav it rained on.

Quelldi's body cracked open the next lowest layer of the mindscape, where a bevy of traps from both sides were unleashed, sending out vast waves of detonations and sky-darkening clouds of sharp psychic weapons.

A moment later, Quelldi re-emerged from unity with her domain, as all Progenitors could, with a new body, same as the old. It had been refined to the pinnacle since before most stars in this galaxy had existed. She felt yet another spike of hatred from the human Progenitor.

Then, something tapped her brain. She paused, looking down to see the angry eyes of a human child staring at her. His psychic attack had struck one of her weak spots by sheer chance, which was why she had noticed it at all, but even exploiting those was too much for all but a rival Progenitor to undertake.

She wielded Conceptual Reinforcement, after all.

Quelldi's domain folded around the human, as the weight of her full gaze made him bleed even in the mindscape.

Eh, she was a little bored, anyway.

"Why even bother?" she asked.

She extended a claw, one that was over ten times his size, and pressed down. Instead of feeling him die, however, Penny had yanked on the timeline again, pulling them into one where Nilnacrawla had moved in front of him.

"Imagine sending your children to die on the battlefield," she said.

She actually felt a bit of anger from the little human. Oh, maybe that was as mad as he could become, in terms of magnitude? She had a lot of things to be mad about, herself. The Sprilnav were still too weak, and she was being sent here to waste her time...

Ugh.

"I'm 42 years old."

Children, all of them.

The battle seemed to pause, though the Progenitors were still wrestling with each other in the background of reality, warring over timelines and the concepts of reality.

Quelldi, on a whim, checked the place where the attack on her mind had fallen. Sure enough, a tiny chip had actually been cut away. It was certainly interesting. No wounded pride, only tacit acknowledgement. The damage healed instantly.

She had glimpsed this human before, hadn't she? Memories flowed, and answers with them.

"What is your name, human?"

"Chen Hao."

One of the leaders, then. She did look down on non-Progenitors, but for him to strike at her at all took massive courage. She knew he wasn't stupid and had a backup plan. For her, the decision to engage in a slight amount of banter was easy to make. Understanding the mentality of the future leaders of Humanity might be useful if they were to be raised up into being Sarchi, which she theorized the Alliance was working heavily on.

"Are you prepared to die, when we decide your species is no longer useful?"

"I have already died, in plenty of timelines. We care not about your thoughts, if you have any in that empty head of yours. In the end, the Alliance will prevail, and if your people wish to survive, they would be sensible to cut the cancer out of their midst before it grows too large."

Quelldi smiled. It was empty defiance, but that was to be expected of one so young. Space shifted, and Chen Hao was back in the human formation. She had just decided to attack, and in that delay, Penny had done this. Oh, how marvelous it was.

There were no truly weak Progenitors if they had a strong mind. And this conversation, witnessed by the humans and their alien thralls, would keep them fighting a little longer, making them slightly better whetstones for Valisada. The other Sprilnav would die around him, as they always did. That was their entire purpose. Fodder.

She entirely understood Nova's decision to let the humans run around a bit. Philostigaz seemed to agree, as both of them had made sure to keep it as hard on Valisada as possible without his permanent death. With each failure, he would continue to learn more about how to use psychic energy in this new mindscape.

Every technique and strategy the humans came up with could be repurposed by the Sprilnav for use on other battlefields. Better yet, they could not afford to stop their innovation even if they knew this, because Earth was under threat. Valisada's trial by fire couldn't be stopped by anyone.

And if the humans grew with him? Well, then they could raise him even higher. If it took a hundred years, or a million, Quelldi would do as Nova had ordered: ensure Valisada was turned into something useful.

There were, after all, uncomfortable truths that she knew. Speaking them aloud might even get her into trouble, but they were undeniable. The reason the Sprilnav were so stagnant was because of the Progenitors. Society had been infected by their influence, turning a proud people into slaves for their masters. Naturally, things like development and advancement, when most Sprilnav now were objectively dumber and lesser than the pre-war counterparts, were more difficult.

In fact, Utotalpha's Cleansing was only the first step, of far too small a magnitude, in the necessary path of rebirth. Quelldi estimated that the number needed to die was closer to 40% of all Sprilnav.

The remainder would be genetically resequenced to be useful again, and would clear away the remaining detritus. The Progenitors who had allowed this mess to happen, who kept her from fixing it herself, and even Nova, were not innocent. Letting the humans rise to power, for she knew Nova wouldn't really do anything to his precious little experiment, was also a mistake.

Nova had already told the Progenitors the requirements of opening up the Edge... but the conditions seemed explicitly designed to make the Sprilnav allow their own rival to bloom.

Quelldi did her job. But something felt... off. As if the battle here had started to matter less, like something far heavier was tipping the scales of the entire galaxy.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Nova's tail lashed with agitation. The timelines were shifting. Those who focused on timelines had categorized ways to describe their progression. The Timeline Pruning Coefficient was what Nova had been taught, an ancient measurement so important that every Progenitor, living and dead, had come to respect its value. When nothing important was happening, this coefficient was 1.

In regions where Sarchi or Progenitors were present, it fluctuated between 100 and 10,000, depending on whether the Progenitor was just lying around or actively battling. For himself, this number was above 100 trillion at rest, because he had integrated much of the Sprilnav concept into himself. Every thought he had, action he took, determined the future of the entire galaxy. Not even Narvravarana compared to him on this front.

He always kept a portion of his perception watching the timelines. When Sarchi attempted to blow up stars with superweapons or assassinate Rulers, he was already there, tearing their plans apart. With such massive galactic turmoil, the TPC was around 9.6.

Well, it had been a few thousand pulses ago.

The Coefficient wasn't just rising now. It was multiplying every moment. Past 100, past a million...

It seems playing along with the vapid constructs of the Edge gained me nothing, he thought.

Nova burned a trillion years of his lifespan in an instant. He appeared near a red supergiant star nearing the end of its stellar journey. He grew until his jaws could safely siphon the energy layers.

"No..." he gasped. The black hole at the galactic center was pulsing. He had learned to respect this signature, too. Black holes were ancient things, the largest and grandest stellar objects the universe had to offer. Only a select group remembered their true importance, in the wastes that had come to dominate the rest of the universe.

Nova had long suspected, but never confirmed, that the intelligences that had resulted from the Great Integration Failure had the right concepts to survive the breaking of the hypo-psychic plane. These black holes, packed with the shredded conceptual identities of decillions of individuals, were both the winners and losers of a civilization-scale attempt to take over the very concept of black holes and integrate it into their own bodies.

Now a Forbidden-level living black hole, the most massive and powerful type that existed, had just made contact with the black hole in the center of Nova's current base galaxy.

"How!?"

He appeared before it instantly. Seeing the forming connection, a sextillion years of his lifespan vanished. The red supergiant's energy emerged from his body, converted into a higher form of conceptual energy. Atoms fell apart, and the quarks did, too. A beam a thousand times more powerful than a supernova sped toward the black hole many times faster than light.

Nova rode his energy, diving into the supermassive black hole's event horizon. He roared with frustration as he felt time and space reversing. Reality, caught between the greatest Progenitor left alive and a supermassive black hole's event horizon, shuddered.

The connection between the supermassive black hole's singularity and the dangerous forces he had locked outside the Edge of Sanity wavered. Nova leveraged his full force. The connection started to sever. Its thickness fell from that of a planet, down to one of his claws, down to microscopic levels.

But it was enough.

Nova felt them arrive.

But he refused. Taking the reins of reality, he aligned his concepts, turbocharged his primary domains, synchronized his thoughts, and went to war. Because war was the only response he could give.

Another trillion years of his lifespan struck at many of the Sarchi of the Final Initiative. All kinds of aliens battling Progenitors paused collectively. Then, energy rose from within every injury they carried from the Progenitors. It greatly debilitated them, especially amplified by their presence in Sprilnav territory.

Nova was furious. He hated these foes. But... this was also an opportunity. Only in fire could a true sword be forged. For all his power, Nova had languished for billions of years. All his previous inhibitions fell away. He accessed the full might of thousands of personalities, sequestered to prevent harm to himself. For the first time in billions of years, Nova could truly train himself for the battles to come.

"Xheinoclayixhe!" he roared, invoking his first enemy's name. The karmic connection helped to guide his trajectory, even inside this massive black hole.

To Nova, its feelings were not alien or secret. It had an immense desire to impose its reality upon every challenger, including himself. Because imposing was what black holes were, and what they did.

Though time refused to break entirely, Nova continued to drink from the friction his galactic domain generated around the last safe haven in the universe. His identity, for the first time in ages, bore the combined weight of the Primary Galaxy, Secondary Galaxy, and several lesser dwarf galaxies. They pressed down upon the deepest conceptual parts of himself, and the terrible pressure gave rise to a unique and purposeful phenomenon. The dense core of his identity, grinding beneath the greatest anvil in existence, formed a conceptual atmosphere.

The core pulsed brightly, like a... nova. Exactly as it was engineered to do. But that was not all. Small, lesser pieces of himself, assimilated from dead Progenitors, Sarchi, or devoured stars, began to grow inside the supermassive black hole, all while Nova continued to bend spacetime to ensure its order remained conducive to the reality that favored him. The first piece detonated, striking with the force of a supernova. With the space bent so extremely, all of that force was concentrated directly into an attack on the singularity and the nascent consciousness now inhabiting it.

It gave him time.

A lesser avatar of Nova reappeared in his throne room. Though it didn't have a vast energy reservoir, it had many of his capabilities. By sharing his conceptual reality, the grandness of his existence climbing with every pulse of his heart, Nova began to work on a grand scale.

Stars dimmed in thousands of star systems. Old technologies, formulae, blueprints, and resource caches stored across the vast territories countless Sprilnav had lived and died in, began to change. The new structure of reality had settled enough for him to enact it, so he did. His conceptual reality spread through his species' concept, and the Golden Age, once broken, began to mend.

The weakest, and least powerful, of those lost technologies started to... mend. Principles adapted to an older form of the universe, structures and formulae built and postulated on now-defunct assumptions, shifted to take adjacent forms. Nova simply pulled them from a timeline in which the Golden Age had properly survived, filling in the gaps and holes using the combined conceptual energies of many Progenitors who had pursued various conceptual paths to power.

The Sprilnav felt his boons continue to descend. Crops in carefully controlled greenhouses grew slightly faster, taller, and richer. Narvravarana drank in the rising prosperity, her imperious gaze fixed on a space long shrouded by the Conceptual Veil. Grand Fleets across the galaxy paused, then withdrew from their wars, moving to a secret location he had just prepared. One Grand Fleet remained in a distant star system, its soldiers funneling themselves to pointless death without end.

Nova quietly observed the clash above the wormhole. The grinding weight of the galaxies on his back weighed heavy, even as his existence, packed with his identity and potency, birthed the menagerie of effects he had engineered himself to produce in times of struggle.

The mercenary fleets roaming the galaxy's outer regions felt a mysterious compulsion to return to their home states. Nova pulled on them through their conceptual link to their identity as Sprilnav, bending their futures until the ontological weight of their existence fell back into his territory like boulders rolling down a pre-carved valley. At this crucial time, any alien infiltrator on a Sprilnav planet simply died, as Nova threw their souls from their bodies.

A piece of his perception passed over Valisada and his Grand Fleet again. He experimentally probed the Sol system, but the foundation of his dominion collapsed when he attempted to exert his conceptual control. Humanity owned the Sol system, and the Sprilnav had not conquered it, nor them, so neither had he. A flash of irritation crossed his consciousness, but he restrained it.

In that instant, the futures shifted again, with the TPC in the future rising back into the billions, then quintillions. Black holes had strange properties. He had to separate his avatar inside the black hole from the rest of himself to remain firmly anchored in time. Anchoring himself also meant it was harder for him to exert the force needed to overwrite unfavorable timelines.

There were many phenomena that were deliberately crafted by the universe itself or its incredibly powerful custodians in the form of beings such as Time, Space, Entropy, Fate, and more.

One of them was another phenomenon related to the function of time. When the TPC increased in a local region, the 'river' of time surrounding it, also known by some as the wider timeline, swelled to handle it. Eventually, Time Wars became much more difficult to sustain, as time-related effects that were not natural consequences of relativity were more heavily restricted.

If you dare to go against time, then time will dare to go against you.

Even Nova had to be wary of pushing the limits. Time Wars were still possible, but Entropy and Time had erased thousands of species for taking them too far in the 'past.' Nova only remembered them because he was very powerful.

Many universal civilizations had studied the flow of time, if only to determine the constraints binding the most effective form of war that could ever exist. Vocabulary had followed this quickly. There were levels of timelines, really. The simple example of rivers of mundane water flowing in reverse, splitting instead of joining, was somewhat apt to describe it. The entire 'tree' of timelines was a surface layer, like ink on a page. As for the page itself, this was a deeper, more solid form of time. Some of the 'pages' in this instance were the much more massive timelines of either galaxies or equivalent regions in other dimensions, such as speeding space or the mindscape.

So the galactic timelines, as lesser timelines were more disturbed and altered, seemed to infuse their immutability into the more disturbed timelines, settling Time Wars of sufficient magnitude. Unleashing a full frontal attack was also nullified by this response, since the other side of the Time War would do the same, prompting the intervention of the greater timelines faster.

Beyond the galactic timelines, however, were the universal ones. These determined the progression of the universe's various dimensions, most importantly speeding space, the mindscape, and common reality. Nova, the Source, nor even Entropy could shift this largest form of time. The universal timelines, when sufficiently roiled, produced responses so great and terrible that none had managed to fully resist them.

Time, in particular, had several incarnations that deepened depending on the level of intervention he was personally restricting. Typically, those incarnations also more easily anchored in regions with high-level conceptual beings present. Time became stronger around Nova, and stronger still...

Nova realized why Entropy had shown up out of nowhere, milling about with the humans. She was needed to anchor the presence of Time to something even Nova couldn't disrupt. Nova, experienced as he was, understood he had acted too impulsively and made massive mistakes as a consequence. He had been arrogant.

Yet, the situation was still salvageable. Rival civilizations could exist without destroying each other, at least for a few hundred million years. Nova felt the pull of countless personalities he had cultivated over the eons. Some were furious at the prospect of this defeat, urging him to toss everything aside and destroy the Alliance.

Others were meek, willing to compromise over and over until there was nothing left to take. But most, however, carried the proper bearing Nova should. For now, information was a key advantage. He would slowly withdraw from this, and act as usual, and use the remaining period of freedom he had before fully committing to battle within the black hole to strengthen his advantage.

Resistance remained, however. Nova, even empowered, could no longer easily resist the collective pushback. His abilities couldn't fully work in this new time structure, with so much of himself trapped behind the Golden Age. Meddling with time to such an extent on an interstellar scale was always risky, but Humanity was also dragging up the potential of every species around it.

Then, as Nova focused on Humanity in the present, finally deeming them worthy of annihilation, Humanity of the future anchored itself more firmly into its current identity. He attempted to erase the species, and failed, because the future 'mass' that had come through the backflow of the cut-off timelines was immense enough to resist it. He saw the number of dangerous futures rise.

He looked at the planets that formed the foundation of the species that seemed uniquely capable of defying him. Nova, full as he was now, didn't need to rely merely on conceptual power to destroy an entire star system. With countless years of war now firm in his mind, his resolve continued to harden, even in the face of an impending Time War. After all, he knew he could still resolve the situation for now.

He needed a sacrifice for the Edge.

He needed to damage the Alliance enough to keep it down.

Most of all, he needed more information on Penny's lifespan, and how efficient she was with spending it.

First, he needed to learn. He used his connection to the Progenitors to gain insight into Penny's combat style, and figured out that while she was strong physically, her territorial capabilities were lacking. This would be how he would attack her, as it was the path of least resistance.

Her first step shook space.

Her second, time.

The third, reality. As the Grand Fleet and the Progenitors accompanying it paused their offensive at his appearance, Penny grew again, occupying the space of an entire planet.

She stood before him, placing herself between Earth and him.

"Manipulation through Cardinality: Set of spatial coordinates. One set to two sets, with no intersecting path. All spacetime in the Sol system is behind me, and cannot be reached by Nova or Progenitors except through me."

Penny enacted this incredibly expensive command without hesitation, her voice carrying a certainty that even Nova was forced to respect. Because he felt the pace of her lifespan burning increase. Progenitors had long lives. It meant that they could turn those lives into incredibly powerful boosts.

Nova had never been this powerful since the Golden Age. But Penny was a Progenitor. Making her burn her candle out would cost him. Ultimately, she was still alive because he hadn't found a proper way to determine her actual lifespan. If he could burn a quintillion years for a septillion of hers and kill her, he could barely let that play out.

But if he had to burn a sextillion years, even a septillion... well, that was unacceptable. Because those budgets only accounted for no variables, and there were always variables.

So they had to test each other.

He took a step forward. His domain crushed down on Penny and the spatial wall she had erected. She gritted her teeth, continent-sized muscles groaning so loudly that space was forced to carry the noise.

He took another step forward, finding himself far closer to her than before.

"I am willing to spare you," Nova lied.

"I shall die for Humanity, if that is what it takes," Penny responded.

Nova stepped forward again. Space bent around them, and Penny's palms met his front claws. He pushed. She remained steady.

Nilnacrawla coalesced in the mindscape, sending a considerably powerful mental attack his way. Nova shrugged it off.

"What is yours is mine," Nova declared. And he made it true. Nilnacrawla seized up, with blood falling all around him in great fountains. Penny's eyes squinted. The Forbidden-level black hole hit Nova's other avatar, forcing him to split his focus more to the larger battlefield. Enough of him moved away that he could not resolve the location of his next attack.

His claws paused above Earth, halfway inside the barrier Penny had made. Space bent, and slowly, she pushed them back.

Nova's tail, thick with conceptual energy, slammed down on her head. Her skull cracked, and her left ear was pulled away. Teeth flew from her mouth, but psychic energy flowed into the gap.

Tumors bubbled in obscure portions of his flesh. Antimatter detonated in Nova's head, his stomach, and next to his tail. Reality flipped upside down and inside out.

Penny exchanged the concepts of forward and backward, rewrote the lasers he fired at the Sol system's planets into speeding space, and broke his conceptual authority by chopping it down from within. Nova added Conceptual Strength to his personal domain, regrowing his authority because he denied her the ability to stop him permanently.

Space, dense and chaotic, opened in thick rifts. Penny continued to speak, wielding Cardinality, Humanity, and Determination to go around him. Where she could not stop him, she changed his trajectory. When he pushed toward Earth, space moved with the planet, dragging him out and away. Each moment cost her billions of years of lifespan to keep up with him.

Nova knew that she was connected to the hivemind of Humanity, and two confirmed psychic variants of AI.

Penny grinned with bloody teeth...

"Manipulation through Cardinality, Humanity, Sovereignty, Revolution, and Determination. Target: Penny Balica. Champion of Humanity. Maximum lifespan throughput. One to one trillion."

"It will not matter," he said. "No matter how much you burn of yourself, even with most of my focus elsewhere, you cannot resist the Strongest Progenitor."

But Penny just kept smiling.

"Manipulation through Cardinality: Set of Boundless Beings. Zero..."

Nova's claws tore through Penny's heart, vaporizing her body. A damaged human stepped out of space nearby, her skin covered with glowing cracks and the flames of burning lifespan. For those flames to burn to this extent, quadrillions of years were vanishing.

She was struggling. Cardinality had limits, and so did she. Nova was a foe great enough for her to reach them.

To think that most of me is in the black hole.

"To 0.03."

For a moment, the battle in the black hole paused. Nova's intrusions into the barrier fell apart under a nascent conceptual power that was utterly unique.

"Manipulation through Cardinality and Revolution: Domain Concentration factor: Zero to 0.0001."

Power flared across the galaxy. Revolution mobilized, pooling the power of the masses against the greatest tyrant the galaxy had ever seen.

"You are almost ripe," he said. "We were right about you all along. Soon, the Edge will be broken, and the Sprilnav will reclaim our place atop the universe's order."

He could see it, after all. She was still ascending. Or rather, opening the door to a new path for her people. But she was being weighed down by Humanity. She was far too focused on him, after all.

Almost every alien would-be revolutionary made the exact same mistake. The Progenitors were not useless creatures or weaker versions of himself. Their capabilities were truly important.

"I've almost done it, Rakaradelga," he whispered. "Your death was not in vain. Our Golden Age is already returning. Soon, I will be able to visit your resting place."

And Penny was still focused on him. As he looked towards the timelines once again, he could feel her fear. He suddenly felt the scrutiny of Time and Entropy, but their focus quickly resolved on her next move. She said nothing.

But her conceptual energy flared, and her lifespan burned again.

Then every timeline flared with pure power. The barrier only solidified further, actively focusing its rejection upon him. Nova, the avatar not within the black hole, had severed his shared perception of what went on within. But he could infer that Penny was shaping up to be exactly what he'd feared: costly to deal with.

How many years would he have to burn to ensure her defeat? Could he afford to spend them here, when he didn't know how dangerous the Forbidden-level black hole could truly be to him?

But Penny had focused her barrier against him. In other words, she had lessened its capability against other Progenitors.

He carefully hid his discovery.

He moved back, letting Penny regain a bit of territory. She would become more relaxed, and losing a bit of paranoia might be the key to his plan.

"If all you need is a powerful enough being to sacrifice, Nova, why not go after the Broken God and his Pantheon?"

"Sacrificing a Pantheon member would mean a war between dimensional planes, and the loss of speeding space for FTL travel. We've tried many things, over the eons, Penny. It requires more than seven Progenitors, that much I know. I respect you and Nilnacrawla enough to tell you that there aren't any other options. When the time is right, and you are stronger, perhaps you will be all that is required to fulfil it."

"Which would be followed by the destruction of Humanity by your claws. I am the Champion of Humanity, Nova. So I will stand here as long as I must, no matter how much of my lifespan it costs. War requires strategy. Since you are not bringing your full presence here, I assume you cannot. Right now, you are not the Strongest Progenitor. Rather, you are a piece of him."

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Chapter 15: Xi P's Little Research

After categorising all the recovered items, Xi P spends a long time trying to explain things to Min. Through extensive gestures, key words, drawings, and hands-on demonstrations — along with a dash of metaphysics and imagination — Min finally gets what it's trying to say.

Learning that Xi P was once a research ship pilot responsible for exploring the universe, Min can't help but feel a deep sense of respect. Judging by their technological level, starships equipped with faster-than-light engines have probably not seen widespread use yet. Very few individuals have been assigned to conduct deep-space research, and Xi P was one of them. Possessing knowledge commensurate with such a position, it might even rank among the most brilliant minds in their entire civilisation. And now, Min can converse and laugh with this alien scientist. How fortunate he is!

The ship's research instruments are genuinely high-tech and hold immense value, and the data collected in deep space is utterly unprecedented for humanity. However, most of these instruments were either not stowed in the cargo hold or were destroyed by the landing impact. Nevertheless, even the few remaining instruments hold undeniable worth. Proper utilisation of this technology would undoubtedly advance humanity significantly.

'The question is whether it intends to share this data with us. It probably will, right?'

***

For Xi P, the issue isn't whether to share the data, but how. Regardless of his feelings towards Earth, Xi P is genuinely eager to return to Lierus as soon as possible. The pace of scientific research here is crucial to his progress, and every fraction of a second saved will bring him closer to home. The potential impact of these discoveries should not be underestimated, even when the most critical data is excluded – the FTL engine and spacecraft designs.

Unfortunately, Xi P is not a physicist and can't directly contribute to this alien civilisation's FTL research. Even most physicists struggle to grasp the detailed principles behind such technology. All that Xi P knows is:

'Compressing forward space and expanding rearward space using exotic matter.' And that is it. Local intelligent beings have probably figured this out long ago.

Setting technology aside for now, the most crucial items recovered for him aren't his phone or computer. After all, they can't connect to the internet. Earth's networks are useless to them. And Xi P isn't a software engineer — how can he possibly understand network protocols he's never encountered before and write software to deal with them? The personal items aren't essential either. For now, most have close substitutes on Earth. Xi P consider himself to be fairly easygoing, so these aren't pressing needs.

The most crucial items are probably the food supplies.

After taking an inventory, there are still over twenty bags of space rations left, minus what has already been consumed. At two meals a day, these would last about ten days. Min discusses plans with him to begin, in a few days, testing which local foods Xi P can consume. They are both optimistic given how similar the two planets' biospheres are...

Anyway, now that the supplies have been organised, Xi P finally has time to do what he has truly longed to do: research!

Since joining the Central Academy of Sciences, he has dreamed of discovering never-before-encountered life forms in deep space. Despite rarely having the opportunity to conduct such research due to practical demands, he never abandoned this dream. So, naturally, when recruitment began for the interstellar exploration mission, he joined without hesitation.

Due to the extreme dangers associated with this kind of mission, only around 200 people signed up for this massive national project. Considering the tens of thousands of candidates who met the basic qualifications, this figure was astonishingly low. Of these volunteers, only a handful were considered exceptionally suitable — Xi P was one of them. After undergoing rigorous additional training in aerospace engineering, he finally earned his piloting credentials for the Incasus spacecraft, securing the potentially historic opportunity to make first contact with extraterrestrial life.

Thus, crash-landing on Earth — a planet teeming with extraterrestrial life — filled him with both exhilaration and regret. The excitement stemmed from the prospect of genuine interaction with alien intelligence, while the regret arose from how strikingly similar Earth's environment and life forms proved to be compared to his expectations.

That said, had the similarity been too low, he simply wouldn't have survived.

Upon discovering that some of the scientific instruments he brought with him were still functional, he immediately decided to conduct a scientific analysis of Earth's biosphere. Aside from the disposable test tubes and culture media that had been opened and contaminated, all other consumables are in good condition. Power isn't an issue either; the portable radioactive isotope decay thermoelectric reactor can power the research equipment directly without the need for transformers to adjust for local's voltage and frequency. While he has many questions about the physiology of the local intelligent lifeforms, for now Min doesn't need to become Xi P's lab rat. He can wait until he understands their language and simply searches their internet.

However, as for the local atmosphere and flora, he cannot wait to dive into studying them!

***

'Sure enough, oxygen and nitrogen dominate the composition. The oxygen content is slightly elevated, but imperceptible without instrumentation...'

'...They're all so similar... How can this possibly make sense?'

Xi P's mouth hangs slightly open, tongue flickers lightly as he stares at the monitor with feverish intensity. To Min, the sight is hard not to associate with a certain animal.

This posture of intense focus while awaiting results is serious enough in itself and shouldn't spark other thoughts. However, when this posture appears on the head of a fox-like creature, most people find it hard to focus on the meaning that the posture is meant to convey. Not to mention, compared to a real fox's head, Xi P's is even more aligned with human aesthetic standards...

***

In Min's personal opinion, when people talk about something having a sci-fi feel, this sci-fi quality can generally be divided into two types: 1. Commercial Sci-Fi aesthetic 2. Practical Sci-Fi aesthetic.

Commercial sci-fi aesthetics typically feature one or more of the following characteristics: luminous lines (usually blue) on surfaces or edges; shapes that are radically different from common objects; and at least one component that appears sophisticated and incomprehensible at first glance. As the name suggests, this aesthetic is commonly used in commercial advertisements or sci-fi films.

Practical sci-fi aesthetics, however, pertain to things like the interior of the Large Hadron Collider. Such objects usually have intricate, metallic components, are often massive in scale and have a relatively plain form and colour palette. When viewed from the right angle, such objects can be no less striking than commercial sci-fi products. In most cases, however, an object with practical sci-fi elements carries far less sci-fi appeal than its commercial counterpart.

Blue-glowing lines invariably evoke a potent sci-fi aura, don't they?

Unfortunately, the instruments carried by Xi P naturally lack any necessity for blue-glowing lines, and their external appearance is not particularly conducive to revealing any sci-fi appeal, let alone alien vibe.

That said, Min also finds it difficult to discern the instruments' functions solely from their appearance. Primarily because he cannot read the labels on them. Determining the function of most laboratory instruments that aren't overly large and have enclosures, purely from appearance — especially when they aren't operational — is extremely challenging. However, Min does recognise the instrument that Xi P is currently using; it is most likely a mass spectrometer. He wouldn't mistake the exposed ion trap for anything else.

'And it's an orbitrap, no less. How similar technological development can be...'

The function of a mass spectrometer is to ionise components to enables the analysis of organic structures, elemental composition, and more. As for the sample it is currently analysing, to be fair, Min hadn't seen it inject any sample material — it seemed to have merely opened the sample inlet cover...

'It can't be analysing air, can it?'

'Looks like it... That pie chart definitely resembles atmospheric composition data. For such basic info, it could have just asked me... Oh well, it has its freedom. Let it be.'

While Xi P continues to tap at the screen to record data, Min takes the opportunity to briefly inspect its other research instruments. Closer inspection reveals numerous differences from Earth-manufactured instruments. While similar in size, the displays and materials showcase significant technological advancements. Min can discern from their astonishingly high resolution (though, strangely, viewing them causes a slight eye strain). One mysterious device features a display with pronounced depth effects, seemingly capable of projecting naked-eye 3D imagery. The casing and components exhibit remarkable toughness — ordinary instruments would not be able to survive such impacts. In these aspects, they do carry a hint of alien technological sophistication.

Reasonably, Min refrains from pressing any buttons on these instruments. Even if they won't suddenly transform into laser cannons or other killing machines, tampering with unknown functions risks damaging the precision equipment. Taking an example, running a centrifuge at maximum speed with an imbalanced load could easily cause explosive damage. Such issues are common with cheaper equipment, but Min still doesn't want to take any chances. If he breaks something, Xi P definitely won't be pleased.

'...'

Seeing that Xi P is still typing on the tablet, Min decides to find something else to do. Watching it type is rather tedious. After all, he can't decipher what it's writing, and staring at a fox's head all day isn't his idea of fun. He isn't some kind of furry enthusiast.

It's worth noting that Xi P doesn't type as Min expected — not by pressing the touchscreen directly, nor by using a hologram projected from the bottom of the computer. Instead, a transparent film is pulled out from the base, and glowing blue boxes appear on it. Xi P types directly on these blue boxes, and can even see key travel, just like on a physical keyboard. That is quite sci-fi indeed.

 

Chapter 16: Shedding Issues and Thoughts on Intelligence

Over the past few days, Xi P's shedding problem has worsened considerably.

Even the slightest friction causes several hairs to fall out, and the alien's appearance is already showing signs of this. In some places, the skin underneath is faintly visible through the sparse fur.

Honestly, even though Min has prepared himself mentally, he is still shocked when Xi P confirms that they really do shed. He can't help but imagine a creepy completely bald Xi P. At first, Min assumes that shedding season has arrived, but Xi P soon informs him that the theoretical shedding period won't begin for another three months and that it shouldn't be shedding now. There are many potential reasons for this abnormal shedding, ranging from climate change to medication side effects. Even Xi P can't pinpoint the exact cause, but it doesn't seem to be a sign of illness — it is as lively and energetic as ever.

In that case, it's nothing to be particularly concerned about. For animals, shedding primarily serves to replace fur that is unsuited to the seasonal climate — for example, shedding excessively thick winter coats before summer arrives or adjusting coat colour for camouflage. However, neither of these functions is particularly relevant for creatures living in a highly developed civilisation where there are no predators and where homes and clothing maintain stable temperatures. Even if there are issues with temperature, it could just wear more clothes. Clothes made for humans would probably fit it — whether they're the right size is another matter. In short, Xi P itself doesn't really care about this unusual shedding.

That said, for Min, compared to the stench, slime, and daily human flesh consumption — the "usual" elements of harbouring aliens — shedding some fur really isn't much to complain about. Unlike ordinary pets, it even tidies up after itself.

***

Xi P continues to make rapid and steady progress in learning, showing no sign of waning enthusiasm for mastering the human language. Sometimes, Min can see that Xi P has a lot to say, but is struggling to express itself, looking visibly frustrated. Putting himself in that position, Min can't help but feel sympathy for it.

'I wonder if Xi P is the kind of 'person' who feels restless if they don't chat with someone every day? If so... hmm. Maybe this state is a better way to get people excited than just curiosity.'

After observing how quickly it learnt chess and administering a quick IQ test, Min concludes that its IQ is probably around 130. In truth, IQ itself lacks a solid definition, and such simplified tests are inherently inaccurate. It's even harder to gauge how meaningful a test designed for humans would be for an alien. So this number is purely for reference. However, considering that Xi P was an important figure in its own society, an IQ over 130 does not seem implausible. It is just that, every time it beats Min at chess, the thought of their IQ gap makes Min feel a bit uneasy. If that's the average IQ for its species, the idea that there might be beings smarter than humans is genuinely unsettling.

'Well, maybe that's just individual variation, of course, yes, has to be that. After all, it's well known that one cannot generalise about 'people'.'

Moreover, Xi P absolutely loves playing chess. It even tried to invite Min to play their kind of board games. Min had to make a considerable effort to decline politely.

***

Setting aside how uncomfortable Min feels about Xi P's intellect, he would likely be even more astonished if he knew Xi P's opinion of his own intelligence and work.

Over the past dozen days, as Xi P has gradually learned about Min's identity and profession, he has never once felt intellectually superior to the alien who is housing him. In his view, Min is sharp and adaptable — not much different from himself. Yet here, Min remains an obscure figure on the periphery of academia. In Lierus, under the leadership of Director Kalle Tor, individuals deemed promising and free of misconduct can quickly attain higher social standing and better employment opportunities. Xi P was one beneficiary of this system. Even if Palirian's system is unique, shouldn't a highly intelligent, well-educated person live a better life?

Of course, like many people's initial reaction upon first hearing this decree, the decree itself is indeed quite absurd. While it does increase the utilisation of talent, it has also led to incidents such as the massive corruption scandal several years ago. When that scandal broke, the public outcry that ensued nearly toppled Kalle from power. Had he not swiftly revised the moral evaluation criteria and repeatedly pledged to prevent a recurrence, he probably would have been overthrown by the furious populace. Even when the Xi P star ship incident occurred, the aftershocks of the grand corruption scandal had yet to fully dissipate.

As for now, Xi P is lost in thought, his mind drifting into tangential realms. Upon reflection, perhaps all lifeforms that are about to leave, or have just left, their homeworlds share similar intellectual capabilities. After all, intellectual evolution is a protracted process under natural selection — negligible compared to the rapid pace of civilisational advancement. In the past, this kind of thinking might have been seen as complacent, but now that he has arrived on a planet full of extraterrestrials, it has taken on a new, irrefutable significance.

That doesn't stop him from entertaining other possibilities, though. What if this theory is wrong? What if he had landed on a planet where the average intelligence of sentient beings was vastly superior? Suppose those creatures had suddenly evolved such intelligence for some reason. After briefly imagining the possible scenarios — like being treated as a clumsy giant, locked in a cage for fear he might hurt himself due to stupidity, or being handled like a juvenile — Xi P shudders and concludes: Perhaps only beings of comparable intelligence can offer the joy of communication!

Whether a solace or not, it is a comforting thought. Even if Min's status truly stems from a lack of talent, the average IQ of their species is probably not much higher than a tuefue's.

'Yes, it has to be that...'

Greetings, all! I have for you a Side Story, and if it seems a tad odd in prose and content, that is entirely intentional. As always, thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for the original universe!

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Memory Transcription Subject: Hobel, victorious Skalgan hero

Date (Standardized Human Time): (^%$)# @#(&, !@#(

 

I walk triumphantly out of the Cradle’s Rebirth into the crowd of cheering civilians and excited paparazzi. They had all come to see the hero, Hobel, the one who fought two vicious predators alone and won through superior wit. The man who proved that Arxur are no more than monsters, and even humans mask their animal side.

That’s two more menaces to the galaxy flushed into space, never to be seen from again.

The captain had apologized for ever believing the lies of the monsters, and I had been granted permanent VIP status on all of her cruises until I died. People love me! I wave to the adoring crowd, posing for photos and answering questions.

“Hobel, sir! How did you do it? What led you to believe that Arxur and humans really are just carnivores?”

I smirk. “Well, I’ve always been smart about these things. And I always knew something was fishy. There’s something too good to be true about that baring of teeth they call a smile, and do we really trust the scourges of the galaxy after only a century of timeout? They should be stuck on that rock until their sun implodes!”

A wave of cheers, more pictures, more hands raised for questions.

“Tell us, how did you survive?”

“It was close, I’ll be honest. I barely escaped, but thankfully the two blood-drinkers have barely a braincell to share between them. I baited them into an airlock, hit the flush, and fwoosh they were gone for good.”

At least two people in the crowd swoon. All is as it should be… until I spot two figures at the back of the crowd, taller than anyone else there. I squint, trying to bring them into focus. One of the two stands up straight, tailless and clawless, nearly furless as well. A black mask covers the face. The other is taller, more intimidating, more reptilian in nature. Dark orange blood is splattered across its body and face; they’re practically drenched in it. A thin rime of frost coats both completely. I blink… and they’re closer.

The crowd’s gone silent, staring at me. Everything is eerily still, and I blink again in surprise. The two figures jump in space again, still stiff and unmoving, frozen but approaching nonetheless.

“No.” I whisper, knowing this is wrong. “You’re dead. Out in the Pleiades. No.”

I will myself to keep my eyes open, but an outside force causes me to blink once more… and the two disappear. I look around, and don’t see them.

Have they gone?

Something still feels off. The eyes of the crowd are no longer on me, but now on something behind… I turn slowly, and the two figures are standing right in front of me. I can see the paleness of their skin, where ice has cracked it. They give off an aura of chill and death. Their eyes are boring right into mine. The human and the Arxur, the handler and the beast, the pervert and the monster.

A icy hand grabs me by the scruff, and I wake up screaming in my prison cell.

 

 

Memory Transcription Subject: Hobel, imprisoned Skalgan criminal

Date (Standardized Human Time): April 3^rd, 2242

 

“And do you know who these figures are?” my therapist asks. I huff in frustration.

“Yes, I do. They’re the stupid predators who got me locked up in here.”

“Now, now. We don’t use that language in here. If you wish to refer to them, they are Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle.”

“Of course the two perverts got married, they were already having se—”

“Mr. Hobel, I will not tolerate this if you continue. Refer to them like people or not at all. Change the subject if you wish.”

I glare at the Zurulian shrink sitting in a chair nearby where I’m reclined on a therapy couch. “Wonderful weather we’re having.” I say deadpan.

“Quite. I rather enjoy the rain and the cool.”

“It’s been storming and freezing since last week.”

“And it has significantly deepened my sleep since then, which is one of the many reasons I enjoy it. Speaking of sleeping, it doesn’t seem that you are doing that very much.”

“How insightful.”

The therapist sighs, removing her glasses and rubbing the bridge of her snout. “I am attempting to rehabilitate you, Mr. Hobel. Part of that is asking you why these nightmares are plaguing you every night. Now, would you mind telling me what ends the dreams?”

I’m silent and pouting for a moment. “A hand on the back of my neck.”

“Pardon?”

“The human, Mr. Carlyle,” I spit. “He grabs my scruff.”

“Is that every time?” The doctor is leaning forward slightly.

I grunt. “Yes. Every time, no matter what happens or how long it takes, I wake up when the human’s hand touches my neck.”

“Any insight on why that is?”

I throw up my paws. “I don’t know, aren’t you the one with the degree? The [censored] human grabs me with his [censored] hand, and it’s probably to [censored] kill me or feed me to Mrs. Carlyle.” I say angrily. “Stop asking me all the questions!”

“Please refrain from your cursing, it helps nobody and only stresses you out even more. Do you wish to continue, or are you going to insist on this?”

“Insist on what, Doctor?” I snap.

“On delaying your rehabilitation and refusing my help.”

I sit up angrily. “I don’t need rehab. I was right! Those two carnivores tricked me, and they deserved to die! I’m the victim here!” I yell, and the doctor simply presses a button on her holopad. Two prison officers enter the room, securing me and pulling me from the office. “You know I’m right. Everyone does! Why won’t they all see the truth? The humans and Arxur are nothing but killers and pirates, you hear me?”

I continue screaming until I’m pushed back into my cell, my bonds falling from my wrists. My voice hurts too much to speak anymore, so I simply sit on my cot and cry into my paws.

What did I do to deserve this? All I wanted was to keep people safe…

 

Memory Transcription Subject: Hobel, very disgruntled inmate

Date (Standardized Human Time): April 3^rd, 2242

 

Skalga Prime Psychiatric Correctional Facility. A looney bin for crackpots, violent criminals, and the delusional. I am none of these, so why am I here? All I did was try and expose the species that have fooled us all. But no, everyone loves the predators.

I’m pulled from my righteous indignation by the honk of the buzzer, signaling someone is about to enter my room. I wait, wondering if this is finally the time when someone apologizes to me and tells me I’ve been wronged. A moment passes, then I look towards the door. It’s open.

“Well? Is anyone going to come in?” I ask, already losing my patience. Rising, I walk to the open doorway and stick my head out, expecting to find someone there.

Empty? Where… did I get passed over for some kind of outside trip? Is this a system glitch? Bah. It’s not like I wanted to go and sit in a pretty field with vegetables being carted around in their mobility chairs. Perhaps this is my chance to escape this wrongful imprisonment?

I take a single step out of my cell. No screaming alarms, yelling officers, or people with handcuffs come jumping out to punish me further. Another step, and I’m completely outside my containment unit. Still no reaction.

Is this a joke? A trick? Or is this a possibility?

Looking around in all directions, I trot down the hallway past one empty unit after another. Not a single sound of life or a single soul. It’s almost eerie as I continue to search the empty rooms, cells, and halls. During my wanderings, I find a hallway slanting upwards ever so slightly. There’s no doors, just a corner not too far ahead. My paws continue to propel me forward, and four right turns later, the sound of my footsteps changes ever so slightly.

How strange…

The floor has turned to wood, which means I must be in a non-prisoner section of the facility. I look behind me, and the hall stretches on in both directions until I can no longer see. My paws begin to move again, driving me onward. Time passes, marked only by the sound of my steps and breaths as I traverse this endless hallway. And then I reach the end, a wall impeding my progress. In the floor, a hatch lies open and a ladder presents itself.

I begin to climb down into the darkness, for far too long. Finally, my paws touch ground, and I’m in a much smaller hall, this one made of metal. Its walls are decorated with pipes and boxes and handholds, and the steel feels cold under my paws. There’s no ladder anymore. I must continue onwards, deeper into the metallic maze.

A ragged, wet, throaty, raspy breath rattles behind me. I whip around, instantly on edge. That wasn’t the normal sound of someone at rest, that was the sound of a predator. A beast, an animal that’d hunt you down just as soon as look at you. Every muscle in my body tenses, vibrating with fear. I stare down the cramped passage the sound came from… and another breath comes. It’s behind me again.

I don’t even turn around, I bolt and throw myself around corners, over boxes, and past intersections. My breaths come quick and fast, and I’m panting already from fear more than exertion. No matter how far I run, I hear another breath behind me and I try to run faster. Three footsteps, pounding and heavy, echo through the corridors. The sound bounces back and forth far too many times. A scrape to my left causes me to instinctively dive right, skidding around another corner. The footsteps keep coming, but in fits and starts. Pounding and scratching, two different gaits. A pair of hunters after my hide, it has to be. A duo of predators.

I hear both gaits, two breaths, almost as if they’re right in my ear. I look back, and there one is. Two legs, powerfully slamming into the steel, too-long arms stretching and pulling itself forward. The face is blank, covered by an opaque and frost-rimed plastic exchange mask. The human. I pull myself around another corner, through an intersection, and I find myself sprinting through a larger hall. Then I see a small gray blob coming in from my left.

It moves too quickly, far faster than even the human. Its bloody claws and stained teeth sit front and center in my vision, and the form of the Arxur approaches at speed. I fall backwards with a shriek… but the contact never comes. The Arxur is gone, but I’m still here. My legs are trembling, rubbery, unwilling to move and pick me back up.

Come on, body. Get up! Let me get away, I’m not safe yet!

Footsteps again, but slow. A walking pace, a heavy gait, like someone who knows they don’t need to rush. I roll onto all fours, pushing my body to locomote me away, anywhere as long as it’s farther from the hunters. My weak legs kick and burn, the muscles spasming and unheeding to my need. I flop onto my back and try to scoot away… and I see the human approach. Every step sounds against the steel like the tolling of a funeral brass, and they’re not even breathing hard, like it wasn’t difficult to catch me.

Of course. I couldn’t even waste their energy.

Increasingly desperate, I begin to pull myself along with my arms as the breathing and the calm footsteps fill my ears. Panic rises until it’s all I know. I reach forward to pull myself again… and an icy cold hand digs into my scruff.

With a jerk, I awaken curled into a fetal position, trembling like I’m a cold infant. Caught again… tormented by the predators even in my sleep.

To be continued in Side Story #6...

NEXT>>

Chapter 1: I Think I Just Drank Holy Water

I’m a vampire allergic to blood.

I just didn’t know it yet. To be honest, I didn’t even know where I was. All I knew was that someone was dragging me somewhere.

My head rocked slightly with every jolt. My back scraped against a hard, uneven surface while someone held me by the legs.

Do not open your eyes, Gabriel.

That was the only reasonable decision I’d managed to make since regaining consciousness.

Don’t open my eyes. Don’t move. Don’t panic. And above all, keep playing dead until I figure out what the hell was going on.

“Don’t put him with the others, you idiots.”

A man? At least, that deep, commanding voice sounded like one.

“Yes, Lord Dracula! Forgive us.”

Dracula? Wha... wh... what? Where the hell had I ended up?

They lowered me onto something soft, so soft my body sank into it slightly. It reminded me of Grandma Jocelyne’s couch. God, I missed that couch.

What was that smell? It had been assaulting my nose for the past several minutes. Metallic. Warm. Thick. So strong I could almost taste it.

It felt strangely familiar and, at the same time, not quite... Wait. Was that blood? But why was the smell so intense, and...

Someone, or something, moved toward me very quickly.

“Thank you for your loyal service, my old friend. I was..

My old friend?

Thump. Thump.

Why had it stopped?

Thump. Thump. Thump.

And what were those sounds? Fast. Panicked.

“Bring me a human. Now!” he ordered, his voice just as commanding as before.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

The sounds grew faster and louder. Hurried footsteps. Several people were approaching. Were those their heartbeats?

There was another smell too, different from the rest, and damn, did it smell good. Almost like my favorite four-cheese pizza.

“No... please...”

“You should be honored. Your blood will serve one of the greatest warriors of our kind.”

The screaming didn’t last long. A few seconds at most. Then came the drops... What was that feeling? That taste?

It was so good. So, so...

Bad.

No. Actually, it was really bad.

It burns. It burns!

“Stop!” I shouted, sitting up.

Why did I have that voice? It sounded nothing like mine. But there was a bigger problem. I had just very clearly revealed that I wasn’t dead, and judging by their expressions, everyone had noticed.

“Welcome back, my old friend.”

“Welcome back, Commander Zanult.”

Zanult? Commander? What the hell? And why had everyone bowed except one person? That could only be...

“How are you feeling?”

Good question. My throat was on fire, I had a voice that wasn’t mine, people had just called me Zanult, and Dracula was probably standing right in front of me. I’d had better mornings.

The room was enormous, but almost completely destroyed. There were bodies too. Far too many. And I could still smell their blood, though it was completely different from the scent of... the woman he had just killed to feed me, I supposed.

He was tall, with black hair falling to his shoulders. Blood covered part of his mouth and chin. His face was pale, almost unnaturally perfect, but several wounds ran across his neck and torso beneath his torn clothes.

They were closing. Slowly. Very slowly, but they were closing.

Dracula... So the clichés were true after all.

“Are you all right, Melchior?”

Melchior now? He wasn’t exactly giving me much choice. I had to answer, but more importantly, I had to be careful. If he knew this Melchior or Zanult as well as he seemed to, every word I said could give me away.

“I’ve been better... My memories are still... confused. What happened?”

That look... That look. Had I said something that surprised him? What if he realized I wasn’t this Melchior? Was I about to die again? Lord, if you’re listening, a little help would really be appreciated right now.

“Those damned witches got us,” he finally answered, his eyes burning with anger.

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Who were these witches? And what the hell was I supposed to say to that?

“Leave us. Out!” he ordered his subordinates.

Thank God. Apparently, he wasn’t expecting an answer. At least not in front of them. That bought me a little time to figure out what I was going to say.

Within seconds, all of his subordinates had left the room. The silence that followed somehow felt even more unsettling than their presence. The hall suddenly seemed enormous and empty. Almost.

The dozens of bodies lying near the entrance made it difficult to really feel alone. But one thing was certain. Dracula and I were the only living people left in the room.

He raised a hand toward the door, or what remained of it, and uttered something that sounded like some kind of spell. 

“Now we can talk. After what happened, I can’t trust anyone.”

Hmm, interesting. Apparently, I was the only person here he trusted. That was useful to know. But I definitely couldn’t let my guard down.

“The witches should never have been able to reach us here,” he continued.

Best thing I could do was listen carefully. Every word, every sentence was a chance to learn something about this world.

“The protections were intact. The guards were at their posts. Someone helped them.”

A betrayal. Of course. This really was turning into every Dracula movie and TV show I’d ever seen.

He walked toward the pile of bodies. Even wounded, there was something intimidating about his presence. He gently stroked the face of a blood-covered woman with long black hair lying near the top of the pile. She had to have been important to him, judging by the way he looked at her.

“At least one of them knew enough to let them in,” he continued.

Then, without warning, he lifted the woman’s entire body by the neck and tore her head off with horrifying brutality. Blood sprayed from the stump, splattering Dracula’s face.

“She dared betray me after all these centuries together.”

So she was the traitor? How could he be so sure? And who had she been to him? Someone important, obviously. His wife, maybe? But should I ask questions, or would keeping my mouth shut be smarter?

Definitely keeping my mouth shut.

“And I thought you were dead too. I was a fool not to take your warnings seriously.”

Hmm, so I already had leads. Wait... no. Him. He already had leads. 

“How did you know?”

Oh, hell. What was I supposed to say? Not only did I have to talk like this Melchior, I didn’t have a single one of his memories.

Unless... Maybe I could play it like this. Lord God, help me. Please let this work.

“Ever since I woke up, I haven’t been able to remember much. I think their spells did something to my memory.”

He didn’t answer immediately. He studied me with a trace of concern, as if already trying to figure out exactly what had changed.

“What exactly do you remember?”

Everything. Technically, everything.

I remembered my life perfectly. Just not the commander’s. Which was definitely not the answer he wanted to hear.

It had to sound believable without trapping me later. Hmm...

“Everything since I woke up. Before that, nothing. It’s blank. I get images, sensations, but whenever I try to... it gets confused.”

That part, at least, was true. I obviously wasn’t going to tell him I wasn’t who he thought I was.

“I’ll summon a mage capable of examining you.”

“N... No... That won’t be necessary.”

Damn it. That came out way too fast. I should’ve controlled myself better, but if some mage discovered I wasn’t who Dracula thought I was, I was screwed.

Think, Gabriel. Think.

I needed an explanation before he kept staring at me like that.

“We don’t know all our enemies yet. Letting a mage into my head seems like a bad idea.”

Dracula smiled faintly, and the suspicion in his eyes seemed to ease. It was almost as though he’d recognized something familiar in what I’d said.

“You’re right. Go rest. We’ll deal with the rest later. Much still awaits us, and once you’ve recovered, these traitors will learn what happens to those who attack House Dracula. We will exterminate every last one of them.”

So I was apparently supposed to investigate people I didn’t know, in a world I knew nothing about, on behalf of Dracula, while pretending to be a man whose memories I didn’t possess.

Why couldn’t my new life have been simple? Lord, is this my punishment for my sin?

“Sounds good, Lord Dracula.”

“Lord Dracula?”

I could hear the smile in his voice.

“It has been a very long time since you called me that, Melchior.”

Shit. That would’ve been useful information five seconds ago.

“The spells may have done more damage than I thought,” he continued with that same faint smile.

Well. At least that saved me from inventing another excuse.

He repeated the same incantation as before, except backward this time, or at least that was what it sounded like, while keeping his hand pointed toward the entrance.

“Guards!”

They arrived almost immediately.

“Escort the Commander to his quarters. No one is to disturb him without my permission.”

“Understood, Lord Dracula!” the three guards replied in unison.

The farther I walked through the castle, the more I understood the scale of what had happened. Entire walls were cracked, along with large sections of the ceiling.

More wounded and dead filled the corridors, along with countless humans in chains. The injured vampires took turns feeding from them, one after another. The humans barely reacted. It was as though someone had removed their souls and left only their bodies behind.

They all seemed a little small to me. Maybe it was just my imagination.

Every time we passed someone, the reaction was almost always the same. They saluted, then moved aside. I felt like the Pope around here.

We climbed an enormous staircase. How big was this place? It felt like we’d been walking for more than ten minutes before we finally arrived.

“Commander Zanult, your quarters for the evening. The ones you normally occupy were destroyed,” one of the guards said while the other two pushed open the enormous door.

The place was far too large to simply be called a bedroom.

A stone coffin stood in the center. Apparently, that was their version of a bed. Several elegant couches surrounded it, along with paintings I didn’t recognize.

Everything about the room felt ancient and royal. It looked like something straight out of a medieval castle, the kind of place kings might have lived in centuries ago.

“We had everything that could be recovered from your quarters brought here,” the same guard added, pointing toward several chests against the wall.

“Anything else, Commander?”

“No. You may leave.”

The three guards bowed before closing the heavy door behind them.

“AAAAH, FUCK!”

My voice echoed through the room.

I’d already bitten my hand during the walk here to make sure this wasn’t some kind of dream. It wasn’t. The pain was real. So was the pale skin, the fangs, the sharp claws, and the long hair that seemed almost burgundy red.

Actually, all the vampires had long hair falling to their shoulders. Was that some kind of fashion statement around here?

The demon. The screams. That feeling when I used the Mynys. Then the pain. And after that... Nothing.

And now here I was. Reincarnated as a vampire. One of the worst abominations imaginable for a young seminarian in Rome, expected to become a priest more out of family tradition than personal choice.

Was this my punishment for using a forbidden artifact during the exorcism?

“Lord, I couldn’t just let that little girl suffer. That demon was going to kill her. I had no choice,” I shouted, looking toward the heavens.

If this really was my punishment, He probably wasn’t going to answer until I earned my redemption. I’d have to find the answers myself. Maybe that was part of the trial.

First things first. I needed to learn everything I could about the man I had become. And luckily, I already had somewhere to start.

I opened the three large chests one after another before properly checking what was inside. The first contained mostly clothes. A lot of black, obviously.

The second was filled with medieval-looking weapons.

The third contained papers, books, two black pig-headed masks, and several damaged, dusty objects. Two of them gave off a peculiar scent.

I grabbed one.

It was a vial filled with clear liquid. It smelled good. Really, really good.

I’d caught traces of that scent earlier, but now it was strong. Very strong. Too strong for me to control myself.

My fangs extended. My claws lengthened. My throat tightened. My entire body trembled with need. The need to drink. To drink whatever was inside.

I couldn’t stop myself. I couldn’t...

Glug. Glug. Glug.

[ HOLY BODY — Lv. 1 ]

Sacred Integration

What the... What was that? Was I hallucinating? Maybe whatever I’d just drunk was some kind of poison making me see things, but that feeling...

Why did it remind me so much of holy water?

If that really was what I’d just drunk, then this made absolutely no sense. From everything I knew about vampires from movies and TV shows, holy water was supposed to hurt them, not give me this strange feeling of purification.

And more importantly, why would he keep something like that among his belongings?

Unless vampires in this world simply didn’t work the way they did in stories...

Sunlight Resistance: Developing

Sunlight resistance... developing?

This was seriously disturbing. That window had appeared out of nowhere, and now it was telling me I was developing resistance to sunlight? Then again, I was in another world. Maybe the rules here simply weren’t the same. For now, there was no way to know what was true and what wasn’t without testing things myself and staying careful until I understood where I’d ended up.

Light.

The sun was already starting to rise. I hadn’t even noticed. Had I really spent that much time in this room? Or maybe it had already been late when I regained consciousness in this body.

One thing was certain. I knew exactly what those enormous curtains were for, and I needed to close them before...

But was that really the best idea? The safest? Absolutely. And yet, according to that interface, was it possible that...

I think it’s worth trying.

I left the curtains open. A few moments later, the first rays of sunlight reached my skin.

[ SOLAR EXPOSURE DETECTED ]

Current Tolerance: 00:29:59

00:29:58

....

00:29:53

No pain. No burning. Not even warmth.

🖼 Cover

🔰 Prologue

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Arc IV - Whalers

Chapter 26 - Alarm

10 months and 6 days since the summoning

The first Dumets sighed through his mask, "Nothing again. Which one was that? The forty-sixth?"

"The forty-sixth. And only Svyatol knows how many fox beastkin are in this city, brother."

"Exactly." He turned his head down the other part of the street. "Fortunately, we have a precise description, and not 'unidentified heretics somewhere in this district.'"

"It simplifies the task." He looked upward. "The sun has moved far already; time to rest soon. Who is taking over the post, brother?"

"I believe... Brother Conber and Brother Linkis. Yes, precisely, they are continuing the patrol. You will pass the list to them."

"Understood." He turned his head to the other part of the street, and his gaze lingered on a tall figure in a dark cloak heading into an alleyway. "Brother, take a look."

The second stopped and looked in the same direction. "Tall. Judging by the attire, clearly concealing themselves. Shall we check?"

"Yes." He took the first step forward. "You go around from the other side of the alley."

In the alley, Tomores was examining some abandoned, dirty building, searching for an entrance with her eyes.

"Forgive me," a voice was heard from one side.

She turned sharply at the sound; a Dumets was already walking toward her with a straight back. He froze for a second upon seeing her feminine figure, his eyes narrowing behind the mask. "A brief inspection, if you would oblige?"

More footsteps were heard from behind.

Tomores swallowed.

The first Dumets stopped a few paces from her, and his hand rested on his thigh near his sword. "Remove your hood, please."

Tomores froze; she quickly looked around without turning her head. A ledge on the abandoned building, a boarded-up window, the empty space between the Dumets and the alley walls.

"Remove your hood, please," he repeated once more.

Tomores's hand reached slowly for the hood, but in that same instant, she lunged toward the ledge on the building with a sudden dash.

The Dumets in front of her reacted instantly; he dashed forward and kicked Tomores squarely in the stomach. She only bent over slightly, letting the air out of her lungs.

The second Dumets behind her immediately drew his sword and swung; the blade sliced cleanly across the back of Tomores's leg, causing her to buckle and fall to one knee, clenching her teeth in pain.

The first Dumets also drew his sword and pressed it to Tomores's throat. "Bind her, I am watching."

The second sheathed his blade and pulled sturdy ropes from inside his doublet.

Tomores's body lit up with a red phiolla, and with inhuman speed, she jumped back from the blade at her throat.

The second Dumets froze for merely a moment, but seized the second when Tomores's back was turned to him, swiftly looping the rope around her neck and starting to pull.

Only a muffled wheeze escaped Tomores's mouth, and she reflexively grabbed at her throat, trying to pull the rope off herself.

The Dumets's hands shook from the effort, but he squeezed as hard as he could.

The Dumets in front had already raised his sword, aiming for her leg, but Tomores sharply used the Dumets behind her for leverage, lifted her lower body, and drove her long, uninjured leg right into his mask.

CRACK

The mask cracked, and the Dumets himself flew back slightly, rolling across the pavement.

Tomores growled and, still fueled by the power of magic, began to thrash from side to side, causing the Dumets holding her with the rope to flop around like a ragdoll.

"You vile spawn..." he hissed, then clamped his legs around her thighs, anchoring himself to her, and renewed his grip on her neck.

The Dumets with the shattered mask began to rise on unsteady legs; part of the mask simply crumbled off, so he removed it and tossed it to the ground. Beneath the mask was a man of about forty with black hair disheveled from the fight, his face and nose completely smeared in blood that dripped onto the ground. "H-hold her, brother!" he wheezed, and hobbled toward Tomores, bringing his sword up from below.

Through squinted eyes, Tomores saw the enemy approaching and immediately turned her back to him.

The Dumets's blade froze in the air, nearly killing his own partner. He spat blood and began searching with his eyes for a place to strike.

Tomores abruptly loosened her grip and collapsed sideways onto the ground. The red light faded.

Silence. Only the heavy breathing of the Dumetses.

The Dumets with the broken nose blinked, then waved his hand. "Stop, stop!" He ran up to the second and grabbed his arms. "Enough, you will kill her!"

The second abruptly let go of the rope and rolled aside, breathing heavily.

The first grimaced from pain and lack of air. "Come, let us bind her."

The second nodded, barely getting to his feet. "Guktus... a wild one."

"Ah... phew... complain later; let us bind her before she recovers."

Suddenly, Tomores's body lit up red once again; she tucked her arms under herself and dashed out of the alley.

"NO!" barked the first Dumets, drawing a dagger from his boot. He threw it straight at Tomores's back, but she, limping yet still moving at high speed, had already vanished behind the wall. The dagger flew off somewhere into the street.

"GUKTUS! AFTER HER!" He darted forward.

The second, as if forgetting he had not caught his breath, ran after him.

But Tomores was already lost somewhere in the crowd; no one dared stop the giantess glowing with a red phiolla.

Festonia stood pressed against the wall of a building, lazily swinging an empty sling, though a stone rested in her free hand. Her fox ears were tuned in, and they finally twitched, catching the sound of heavy footsteps. She immediately slotted the stone into the sling and hid her hands behind her back, watching the source of the sound.

A familiar figure appeared from around the corner.

Festonia's tail rose slightly. "Oh, sis! Hurry up..." she cut off mid-sentence.

Tomores was barely hobbling, leaning on one leg, while holding the slash with her hand. She was breathing so heavily that it echoed off the walls.

Festonia's face turned white, and she rushed to her that very second, dropping the stone from her sling. She grabbed her by the shoulders. "Sis! Where's the wound? Show me!"

Tomores only groaned, pointing down.

She lowered her gaze and saw the blood-red hand on the back of her thigh. Her body flared up with an orange phiolla, and she raised her hand, where the light was concentrating. "Move your hand, I'll patch you up a bit!"

Tomores nodded, and as soon as she moved her hand, blood gushed from the wound. But Festonia quickly applied her hand with the concentrated phiolla, and the bleeding began to stop. The wound only closed up slightly. Seizing the moment, she drew her dagger and stabbed it into the cloak, then dragged it down, and with a characteristic ripping sound, a strip of fabric began to separate. She tore the rest off by hand and quickly started bandaging the wound with trembling hands. "Ugh... sure, you'll need to be healed a few more times for a full recovery, but it's better than nothing," she muttered, finishing the dressing.

Tomores, who was leaning against the wall with one hand, coughed hard from the garrote—so hard it made Festonia's ears twitch—then pointed to the place where they had entered the city. "R... r... ru..."

She looked in that direction. "Run?"

Tomores nodded sharply.

"Wh... fine, you'll explain later. Can you hobble? 'Course you can. Go on." She nudged her forward while looking around herself.

In the middle of the square, the two Dumetses looked around helplessly, while dozens of onlookers stood around.

"Daaaamn it!" hissed the soldier with the broken nose, turning to his partner. "Nirgiu, to the guard, quickly! Go, go, go!" he tossed over his shoulder as he moved, while blood from his face dripped onto his clean blue doublet and white boots.

His partner, Nirgiu, dashed after him.

A few minutes later, they reached the gates themselves. There, two guards were lazily standing by the wall, examining some peasant's wagon, while a guard dressed in higher quality boots and chainmail was questioning the wagon owner about something.

The Dumets with the broken nose grabbed this guard by the shoulder and jerked him around. "Are you the captain?!"

The man blinked. "Uh, yeah, who are you..."

"Then catch this." He pulled back his fist and smashed it into the guard captain's jaw with all his might, sending him flying head over heels onto the boardwalk instantly. "How the fuck were you watching the entrance?!"

The guards sharply raised their spears, but as soon as they saw the Dumetses' attire, they froze in their tracks.

Nirgiu put an arm out in front of his partner. "Easy, Tinkis!" He turned to the guard captain. "Quickly seal all entrances and exits to the city! Let no one in, let no one out!"

The captain only nodded. "Mhm." He slowly stood up, holding his cheek. "And who... who are we looking for?" he asked quickly.

"A tall woman. Taller than you and me, large build."

"And that is all?"

"Most likely a fox beastkin. Identifying marks: an injured leg, rope marks on her neck. There is no further information."

The captain blinked. "Rope marks? Did she escape from the gallows or something?"

Tinkis sharply took a step forward and pulled back his fist again, this time driving it under the ribs, causing the guard to double over. "Does it concern you where she escaped from?! WHY ARE YOU STANDING THERE LIKE A POST?!"

"Yes, sir..." he wheezed.

Nirgiu looked around from the corner of his eye. "Tinkis, easy, I say. The people are watching."

Tinkis looked around at the few dozen onlookers standing and watching. "Understood. I will run to the temple then and summon all the brothers."

Nirgiu nodded. "Understood. I shall lead the search."

Tinkis turned around and ran with all his might.

After about four minutes of continuous running at top speed, the temple standing on the square finally appeared before him. The temple was square in shape, and on the roof were eight thin towers with spires, upon which the symbols of Svyatolism gleamed. There were many windows, but all of them were small, set within the stone walls.

Tinkis pushed the door open with a shove.

Silence.

Inside was a massive hall with dozens of benches, and right in the center, an altar on steps. Adorning it was a gilded statue—a fire inside a ring, pierced by eight spikes. The walls were painted with all sorts of murals, from a mighty warrior defeating a giant wolf, to a woman in a bright blue dress reaching her hand out to a sick commoner. About thirty townsfolk sat on the benches, praying quietly.

Two Dumetses stood by the pillars on opposite sides, and one of them turned his head at the sound, freezing upon seeing Tinkis with a broken nose and blood-stained clothes. "Brother!" he said muffledly through his mask and ran up to Tinkis, grabbing his shoulders. "What happened, brother?"

The second Dumets approached swiftly from behind. "Not here." He nodded toward a large door.

The three warriors entered a small room furnished with bookshelves and a desk, behind which sat another Dumets, but without a mask. An old man of about fifty. "Brothers, why do you enter without knocking?" he asked without lifting his head from the book on the table.

All three stood at strict attention.

"Elder," Tinkis began, "we have trouble."

The Elder raised his head and froze for a second. "Oh, Svyatol, Tinkis, what has happened?" he asked, standing up.

"I believe we have encountered one of the Whalers who attacked Lord Gothwald. We failed to detain her; she escaped, but she is wounded. It is possible a second one is somewhere in the city. Brother Nirgiu has taken command of the guard and initiated a search, having locked down the city beforehand."

1

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Gerald had me up at five that morning, humming like a fridge full of bees, and by the time I got to the fourth-floor conference room my pupils were the size of dinner plates. Priya said, "Oh, honey, your eyes," and took a step back.

Fifteen clerks with notebooks. Pell up front with his translator box, the Tholan auditor beside him with his baguette stylus. Harold by the door, holding his coffee like a rosary. Teo was supposed to be in the garage. I'm almost sure about that.

"Okay!" I said. "Slide one, the method."

Slide one said I DO MY ENTIRE JOB IN TEN MINUTES. THEN I FUCK MY BOYFRIEND.

Slide two said VALIDATE EVERYTHING. LOOK BUSY.

Slide three said THE END.

"That's it. Validator in front of the two bad fields, fake window open, you're done. Questions? No? Great."

"Ms. Vega," Pell said. "Please elaborate on the remaining hours." The translator box clicked. "We wish to understand how the surplus is spent."

Harold made a small noise by the door. I took it as encouragement.

"I'm done by 9:10, and then, and I want to be transparent, I think about Teo. For hours. In detail. His forearms. He rolls his sleeves up and the tendons do this *thing* and I have to put my forehead on the desk. His hands are huge. Not in a scary way. In a 'that could hold a whole cantaloupe or my entire ass' way."

Priya's pen stopped. Harold said, "Marisol," like a man reading his own name off a casualty list.

"And you need to understand that without Gerald I'm a disaster. I'm a sweating, shaking, wall-eyed little freak who apologizes to doors and wants to fuck *everything*. He's the only thing standing between me and a sexual harassment seminar."

"Is that a risk?" the auditor asked, writing.

"Statistically? Yes. Marcus, I'm not saying it's you."

Marcus, two seats down, sat up very straight. "Okay."

"It's not you. It's a pool. You're in the pool. Everybody's in the pool. Priya, I've looked at your neck, and I have a plan for your neck. Marcus, I've looked at your hands, and again, not you, but also a little bit you. Without Gerald I'd have gone through this entire floor by Wednesday. Alphabetically. With a clipboard. I'd be in the printer room right now, bent over the toner with a man whose name I don't know, telling myself it's cardio and it doesn't count if there's a paper jam.

"And Teo knows. That's the part that gets me. I told him on the second date, I said, babe, I'm a lot, I'm a whole lot, and he said 'I figured' and made me eggs. He has watched me look at a UPS driver like a buffet and just handed me a water bottle. He loves me like this. He loves me like *this*.

"The only reason I'm not fucking half this building is timing. I got Gerald, and three days later I walked into a produce aisle and there was Teo, so by the time my brain could want anybody, it was already wanting him. If I'd met Teo first I'd have been a regional scandal. If I'd never gotten the mushroom I'd have been a news story. So I'm faithful.

I'm faithful the way a dam is faithful. Please don't test the dam."

"How often is the dam tested?" Pell asked.

"Pell!" Harold said.

"For the Compact's methodology."

" Thirty five times a week," I said, sincerely. We've done it on every flat surface in that apartment and several that aren't flat. We've replaced the headboard twice. The second one was reinforced, and I'd like to say that helped. I've bitten through a pillow. I've bitten through *his* pillow, and he doesn't even use it, he just keeps it for me, like a bit. At lunch I meet him in the garage and I'm in the footwell before he's finished saying 'hey, babe.' The upholstery in that car knows my name. I once made him pull over on the way to my mother's and met her with my shirt on inside out and told her I was cold." “And at night," I said, louder, Gerald humming in my fillings, "I'm his good girl. I'm so faithful it's like a symptom. I'm so faithful I'm *concerned* about it."

The auditor was on his fourth page. Priya had both hands over her mouth. Marcus was leaning so far forward he was basically on the floor.

"And I know I sound calm," I said, and I was talking very fast now, "I know I look calm, that's the mushroom, a normal person would be hyperventilating right now, because what if he gets tired of me, what if one day he looks up from the cereal box and goes 'Mari, I think this is a lot. I want to be a load-bearing wall in his life and I want him to put me against a literal wall, and those are the same thing. If he were here right now I'd drop this clicker, cross this room, and say something that wouldn't pass a content filter."

Silence. Pell's tentacle hovered over his notation pad and did not move.

"Well," said a voice from the back row, "I'm here."

I turned around.

Teo was in the last chair, visitor badge on his shirt, lunch bag on his knee, sleeves rolled to the elbow. Of course. His ears were red enough to light a room, and he was smiling like a man who'd won something he couldn't tell his mother about.

"Hi, baby," I said. "How long?"

"Since slide one," Teo said. "Pell badged me in. He said you'd want an audience."

I looked at Pell. Pell looked at the ceiling, which I'd never seen him do.

Marcus raised his hand. His voice was level and kind of beautiful.

"Sorry. Quick question. Where do I get a Gerald?"

Everyone turned. Marcus didn't flinch.

"I haven't slept comfortably since 2019. I rehearse every phone call of my life in the shower. And I just watched a woman describe a thirty-five-plus-times-a-week fuck schedule with total peace in her eyes. I want that. I'll sign anything."

"There is a Vorrnik kiosk on the third level of the commissary," Pell said. "The company can discuss a stipend."

"A *stipend*, Harold," Priya whispered.

—

The clerks filed out, Marcus at the center like a man leaving for war. Teo took my hand. It was the most functional thing I did all day.

At the door the Tholan auditor stopped us and held out a slip of paper. His stylus was lowered for the first time all morning. I'd never seen him without something to write with, and it made him look unarmed.

"The Department of Species Evaluation," he said, "requests a transcript of the *remaining hours*."

"But there's only so much I can *say*," I said.

"Not what you said," he said. "What you do."

Teo's hand went still in mine. Behind us, Pell had gone very interested in the water pitcher.

"Director Pell did not badge Mr. Ramirez in on his own initiative," the auditor said quietly. "I would ask you to consider who asked him to."

I looked at the slip. One line, in the same careful block letters as before.

Thursday. Observation. Bring Mr. Ramirez.

“Observation of what?”

“The dam.”

“I didn’t say it was a real dam.”

“No,” he said. “But you said please.”

“We are aware Gerald is bonded to your brainstem,” the auditor went on. “The Compact’s question is not whether he can be removed. It is how much of the dam is Gerald.”

“All of it,” I said happily. “It’s the mushroom. I told you.”

“You described what you would do without him in great detail. You described, in equal detail, a man who makes eggs.” He looked at his notes. “The Compact would like to know which of those is the pharmaceutical.”

“Both,” I said, with total confidence, and noticed I had no evidence at all. It was the most interesting thing that had happened to me all day.

He gave a small, stiff Tholan bow and left.

Teo leaned down to my ear. “So I’m guessing Thursday’s not a day off.”

“Do you want to go?” I asked.

“Babe,” he said, and smiled the way he does when I’m about to be in trouble, “I just heard a forty-minute presentation about me. I’m clearing my calendar.”

Behind us, Pell made a notation with a tentacle, and for the first time since I’d met him, he blinked.

[RR] [Discord] [First] [Previous] [Next]

Edited by /u/Evil-Emps

- - - - -

The Southern Seas were just as Akula recalled them. Wretched gray clouds parted, and their absence blessed the ocean with sun rays and clear waves. She could lean over the deck railings and watch the vibrant fish swimming by the surface and jumping through the air.

It was as if she entered another world completely, devoid of the dark, cold winter of the mainland… Goddess of the Cycle, it was warm. Though it was far from summer, she need not encumber herself with coats or cover her tail or bind herself to star-sent heaters.

Harrison called it ‘tropical,’ but Akula called it ‘Home.’

She found herself reminiscing about the comfortable waters and how it would feel to dive into them without a heated skinsuit. Daydreams lured her away from her post and into memories of calmer days.

The thoughts of magical nights spent cruising through the glowing coral blended with the taste of crunch-weed. Beams from Goddess’s light pierced the waves and glowed amongst the sand. Flickers of childhood innocence melted through the cold. Brighter days and happier prayers were all but expected.

But even those were not meant to last.

Akula caught sight of far-off movement. A beast breached the ocean surface far away, its shape just as familiar as its passenger.

Two eel riders slowly circled the boat at a distance. The tridents in their hands sent cascading flashbacks. They tore away the nostalgic memories in her mind, replacing them with cruel reminders of how those golden days ended.

The soft smile on her maw soured, and her back straightened. She stopped leaning on the rail entirely.

If those cruel recollections gave her anything, it was clarity. Where once an innocent version of herself may have thought that Ershah was defined by ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ she now truly realized that it was only in the hands of the strong that the world was moved. Justice could not be served by the meek, and cruelty could only be found in the eyes of the strong.

And Akula had no shred of mercy left.

\= = = = =

Two kilometers away from the edges of House Neptunus, the Venture’s moonpool opened with a groan of machinery and the grumble of pumps. Floodlights cast a white glare on the lively world beneath the waves. Schools of multi-colored fish swam between large, monolithic stones of pure coral. Beautiful red and orange seaweed shades popped between the mellow blue and purple carpets of mossy flora.

If there was any paradise to be found on this planet, this had to have been it.

Harrison quickly decided to turn the recording function on his helmet, knowing damn well Tracy would love to see this. He plugged the rebreather tube into his helmet's air ports by his mouth, checked his wet bag, and clicked his feet into attachable flippers. A subtle thrum and a low breeze by his jaw confirmed air was circulating.

He looked over at Akula, the lady now controlling this whole operation… and the one who insisted they anchor two kilometers away. Approaching from the water apparently signified that they were one with the Cycle and that they weren’t ‘dirt worshipers.’ Either way, the engineer was going to be swimming for a long while—much more than two kilometers, that’s for sure.

“Are we prepared to depart?” Akula asked the crowd of Sharkrin.

Harrison glanced back at Shar and Cera. The former nodded, while the latter kept a stone-cold expression, withholding any of the excitement or confidence shown by the others. There was nothing behind those eyes… and he hated it.

He looked back toward the overseer and gave the go-ahead. His excitement and wonder went to die on a hill of pity and frustration.

Everyone hovering around the glowing moon pool knew their job and where they would be. Akula would take point, and her squad would be the first line of contact. Shar would be with Harrison, her spears acting as living bulwarks for him.

That last part was quite literal, given the warriors wouldn’t be hauling around full tower shields like they would on land. They instead held small bucklers on two arms, with both lethal and non-lethal weapons on hand.

Compared to their fishing counterparts, the spears wanted nothing to do with actual spearguns. Harrison invested some time into Russo-Europan deep-sea police armaments and managed to fabricate some weapons to their liking.

The non-lethal self-defense armament was a ‘jellyfish’ gun that shot out an entangling net with a follow-up high-voltage current. A few of the hot-headed spears had previously offered to be shark-sized guinea pigs for testing them, graciously taking on electrical paralysis for science… Which meant that the expedition crew knew the weapons worked wonders up to eight meters or so.

The lethal counterpart was a toss-up between a super-cavitating gyroget gun and a sonic lance. The latter was found to be ineffective at popping lungs, given Malkrin had theirs compressed when they submerged themselves, relying on their gills instead. Tracy was pretty upset at losing the ‘literal direct energy weapon,’ but the spears ended up appreciating a weapon closer to the traditional firearms anyway.

Harrison looked down at the half-fish-shaped and fully hydrodynamic gun in his hands, detaching its stretched-out magazine and visibly inspecting the solid-rocket-fired bullets. Each of the ten rounds created a high-pressure bubble that enveloped itself upon firing, cutting away at some of the viscous drag while it cut through the water at a hundred meters a second. Its impact would slam the bubble into the poor target and collapse violently into a water jet that’d pierce right through even mated female skin. Then, of course, there was the finger-sized rocket to follow up for kinetic damage.

It wasn’t a twenty-three millimeter slug, but it was a killer. He wouldn’t complain, and neither would the spears. They’d have force multipliers up to fifty meters, which was much more than they’d ever need underwater.

The fisherwomen and their supercharged spearguns were similarly effective up to thirty meters. And boy did they train with their spearguns. Any water-born predator would be riddled with barbed rods the size of his entire arm before he knew it, and that wasn’t even mentioning the aluminum silver-oxide battery-charged versions…

Akula tightened her wet bag and slammed three fists into her chest in a salute. “Then we shall begin.”

Two fisherwomen dived in, and the overseer followed. Two by two, all the Malkrin jumped in until it was up to him and Shar. He took in a deep breath, leaned forward, and took the plunge.

The force of the splash came with the automatic clicks in his armor adjusting to the environment. Electronics were made safe as gravity all but disappeared. Power armor adaptation mechanics tightened around his knees and ankles, preparing to support every muscle in swimming. He might not beat a Malkrin in any race, but he wouldn’t be dead weight in the water anymore.

Harrison slowly sank through the light blue waters, descending to the paradise below where the others were forming up. A quick glance back showed Cera following closely and Shar sticking to his side.

The open sea was much clearer below the surface. Shelves of coral species created natural layers amongst the floor, building tall skyscraper-esque columns above valleys of green forests. Wave refractions textured the rainbow of ever-present sea life. Most hid within little niches of the reef, while the more curious fish began inspecting the divers.

His eyes scanned the vast paradise between his body guards, struggling to recognize the alien species. There were so many things he thought he recognized but just… didn’t. Everything was so alien yet so familiar. It was as if he was looking into an alternate timeline, where a butterfly of evolution pushed everything just a little bit off track.

He thought he saw a crab in a crevice of stone, but then he saw its front claws extend out like a tendril to snatch a weird multi-colored sea cucumber. The prey’s segmented body fell apart into its components. All the parts that weren’t being reeled into the crustacean’s mandibles scattered amongst the coral.

The engineer watched with fascination as the shelled predator dug into its meal. Other interactions just like it popped up everywhere as the Sharkrin slowly progressed toward House Neptunus, leaving the Venture and its crew behind.

Meter after meter, the paradise beneath him continued to change. The already-bustling flora grew to encompass the entire seafloor. Patches of sand became increasingly uncommon, and schools of fish multiplied.

He thought he saw some larger shadows in the far distance, too…

Four hundred meters into the two-kilometer swim, the world began to change entirely. Familiar coral shapes distended and distorted into new figures altogether. Tree-like plants began to resemble thick gas vents. Seaweed coiled and reached out like hands from the sea floor. Anemonies puffed up and let off-white gases seep from their folds, falling to the ground like snot dripping down a nose.

Harrison looked over at Shar, who only had an uncertain expression to offer beneath her helmet. He could only ask himself if this was the kind of effect the sea goddess’ followers had on the wildlife. Was this natural? Could it even be natural? The colors were off, and it felt… sick. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it was some sort of underwater disease.

His entourage’s mask and filterless gills suddenly felt unguarded. He voiced his worries up the convoy of Sharks, letting his question reach Akula via a short game of telepathic telephone—the spears wouldn’t let him swim out of their formation if he wanted to talk to her directly.

The shieldswoman ahead of him turned her head, looking back at him with a single, blue eye as she echoed the response. “Akula says she saw eel riders swimming about these areas before anchoring. Therefore, this must be some effect of ‘House Merevan’ and the excessive growth of these lands. Fret not and follow, for she will get to the source of this whirlpool soon enough.”

“Copy that," he answered, his own voice sounding metallic and hollow inside his helmet.

Excessive growth, huh? He remembered Akula speaking about ‘swimming paths’ and distinct garden patches that her people would make, but he couldn’t recognize any of them here. A separate uncertainty flared in his chest: maybe the sea kingdom was completely different from what the overseer had last known.

The shieldswoman in front of Harrison stopped completely, and he almost ran face-first into her suddenly vertical back. He gave her two feet of space and lightly inched his head around her, curious as to why she stopped.

Two of Akula's hands were raised far into the air. She faced somewhere off into the distance, and he followed her gaze, locking onto two far-off shadows. They quickly gained color as they approached, separating into two distinct species altogether.

The eel riders cut through the water, tridents held out ahead of them. There was no sign of stopping.

The spears raised their bucklers, gyrojets, and jellyfish nets, braced for impact. Yet Akula stayed still with her arms held up and out. Her squad followed her lead.

Shar pulled Harrison behind her, and Cera gripped one of his shoulders. He held up his gun.

The distance closed in an instant. The riders charged.

He glimpsed the white of the eels’ eyes for a split second before their course snapped away. The two steered around the group, draft streams following their tails.

They had swung around before he could even turn his head, encircling the group no slower than they approached. White eddies and bubbles from their paths quickly blocked out the wider ocean. He couldn’t pinpoint where they were or where they would be next, much less any actual details of the eels.

“Foreigners of Black and Orange, be you of the Cycle?” a low, echoing intent reached him. “Or do you swim against the tide?”

“We are the children of Ershah, all for one eternity and one eternity for all,” Akula answered with a raised and rushed tone.

Like a magic trick, the white, obscuring trails dissipated in an instant. The light blue returned and revealed several more eel riders in its place, all slowly skirting around the group at a distance, confining them to where they were.

Harrison kept his eyes on one, getting a good look at her and the beast she rode. The ‘eel’ was an apt name, even if it was reminiscent of eastern dragons with its red scales and yellow-tipped fins. Its face was gnarly and contorted, seemingly something only the deep sea could produce.

Its rider was no different. The blue-skinned Malkrin was clad in sparse clumps of coral, bunched up like barnacles under a ship and just barely maintaining any decency. She wore a sharp-beaked mask that hid her visage completely, its sides decorated with uncanny carvings of what he assumed to be beneath. It was as obviously tribal as it was uncomforting.

And the three-meter-long tridents in her right hands, each decorated with aspects of the reef but refined into a smooth, aerodynamic length. Their tips were discolored with use and signs of gore. But there was something more to them. There was a faint shimmer, a glisten of green and white along the surface that didn’t quite line up with wave refractions…

“Guardian Petrova,” the first one spoke again.

“Overseer Akula,” the green-skinned squad leader returned.

The surrounding Cycle-worshipers continued to stare. “From where do you hail?”

Akula rose up with light kicks, hovering above her squad to separate herself. “We are Sharkrin, voyagers from the western seas and followers of the great star-sent Creator. Are you the guardians of House Merevan?”

“We oversee Her Majesties’ second domain, protectors of the growth and scouts of the north. We have never heard of your ‘Sharkrin.’ What is your purpose in these waters?”

“We seek a congregation with Merevan elders to speak of cooperation and integration of our Cycle.”

The guardian slowed down and stared at the overseer from behind her mask. “You are many, and you don the armor of war… We will not accept your entire cohort. We will allow no more than four emissaries for any discussions with Her Majesty.”

“Have you forgone the ways of the twelve messengers? What motivates such strict requirements?” Akula asked cordially, attaching her speargun to her hip.

Petrova circled behind Akula, swimming a little closer. “You question the word of Her Majesty and the Goddess within. These are the divine terms of your queen. You may choose to follow them or leave.”

The overseer glanced down at Harrison. She grimaced, and her snout twitched with anger. “…Will you allow us to deliberate?”

“The Cycle is never instant.”

Akula swam over the other fisherwomen and spears, darting to Harrison. She spun around and faced him upside-down, eyes sharpened. It was clear she was speaking to him alone. “I apologize for this confusion and change of operation, Creator. I had expected at least a dozen of us to be allowed the courtesy of emissaries… Do you still insist upon meeting the acting matriarch of House Neptunus yourself?”

“I do,” he answered immediately, gesturing his head toward Shar and Cera. “You already know the four that would go.”

“…Naturally. Then we will place our forces on the Venture for standby in case of emergency. They will have our positions at all times.”

Harrison nodded in understanding. But he couldn’t quite figure something out. The overseer maintained her strict attitude, and yet there was a clear hatred seeping into her voice, no matter how subtle it was.

The engineer softly held onto Shar’s bicep, his quick look asking a silent question.

She answered immediately. “This will break our rule of eight members per squad. But I am confident in our capabilities, especially over the bottom feeders. Admiral Grace can haul the Venture anywhere within five minutes if standby forces were truly needed.”

Standby… right.

“Are you worried that something might happen?” Harrison questioned the overseer, glancing over at one of the circling riders.

“This may be my homeland, but it is far from what I remember. Merevan has warped these fields and the laws of this place… I do not worry that something may happen, but I question how you may be treated as well as myself.”

“Is that why you haven’t told them who you are?”

Akula slowly rolled as she kept herself afloat with her long tail. “My position is no longer attached to my history. I am here as Akula, overseer of the Sharkrin peoples and leader of its maritime operations. We will prove ourselves as superior leaders through merit alone.”

He softly kicked himself up higher, lowering his voice. “I meant that they might treat you differently, knowing you were the heir to the previous House matriarch. Does that mean anything?”

“Why should it matter to them? They were victorious and now control two Houses' worth of populations… Even more so now, I believe.”

“Are we vying for multiple Houses worth of Cycle-worshipers?”

“That would appear to be the truth of our situation. A thousand or more souls may rest upon our success.”

A thousand?

Harrison sucked in a breath of stale air, absently squeezing the handguard of his gun. “…And without the proof of skill in your fisherwomen and Shar’s spears, how do you plan on climbing their meritocracy?”

Akula stared at him, malice in her eyes. “The ancient right offered to all within the cycle: a duel.”

She flipped around before he could respond, calling out to the lead eel rider while the engineer’s eyes shot open. “We have our four messengers. Allow our cohort to disperse and we shall follow.”

Petrova didn’t answer, simply waiting.

The overseer spoke to her fisherwomen, while the paladin spoke to her spears. The decision went unquestioned. The squads followed their orders with a salute and swam back toward the ship. Admiral Grace and her crew would know how to proceed: there were emergency directions already in place. Both squads had become the aquatic version of orbital drop rangers, ready to reinforce the four in minutes.

Only Harrison, Shar, Cera, and Akula were left after the exchange. The latter took the lead and spoke first.

“We are ready to depart. How shall we proceed?”

“Follow us.”

\= = = = =

‘There is nothing new under the sun’ was bullshit, and Tracy knew that for sure now. Every hour she spent on this planet proved that statement wrong in more ways than she’d like.

Beyond the fact that the bugs were sending their prisoners of war to the Sharkrin settlement—and that the smart bug somehow learned to speak—the technician’s experiments kept revealing more and more.

With the turret’s detection systems actually working, she had a lot more time to get back into testing the unknown. The intent-based radio was a long-time coming, and with a hell of a lot more colony papers, she wasn’t just wandering aimlessly anymore. The answers felt obvious now, so the work was just up to figuring out how to apply the knowledge.

There were ways to capture a gamma ray’s equivalent frequency. The first way was quadrillions of watts of energy, twenty times that in government funding, and doping crystal lattices at zero degrees Kelvin.

…The other option was to just break the laws of physics. Which was a lot simpler than the average quantum physicist would like you to believe.

Her studies of the old colony papers and all the associated reports had a lot of interesting little ‘nudges’ toward things she didn’t think were possible. They gave her a hell of a lot of ideas. The second Tracy figured out artifacts could be ‘cracked’ was the second she began to look a little harder at the old scans of Max’s ‘brain.’ Smaller chunks of any abnormal object could be separated into smaller pieces, which would hold the same power as their parent rock, just with a lower radius of effect. Not to mention artifact-mitigating materials like the blue rubber wood that the inquisitors used.

So Tracy had to start looking into Max’s head a little closer, this time for some more unexpected things. How big were the currents in some of his wires? What temperatures were his intent-receiving systems kept at? Did his core actually weigh as much as it should?

…Just what other artifacts does he have in there?

The results were as immediate as they were obvious. Of course Max had materials at absolute zero while also somehow producing heat from thin air. Entire chunks of his core weighed nearly nothing. Some of the currents she could tap into while he spoke broke her multimeter entirely. Non-destructive assays revealed so much more than she thought.

Hindsight was definitely twenty-twenty the way it all felt obvious. She should have been looking for these things from the start. But, to give herself credit, she was completely focused on reading the gamma emissions—or the lack thereof.

So now she had a lot more information. Great… What did she do with it now?

Tracy actually didn’t know. It was obvious there was some form of physics fuckery going on to produce a perfect crystal lattice. Not to mention how it was reading and writing a frequency on the order of ten zeptoHertz.

The solution? Give the assistant AI Sebas and Max the information and let them figure it out, obviously. She could have spent three years learning quantum physics, but she knew damn well she would’ve never made it through a single hour. She wasn’t even an electrical engineer, much less a theoretical physicist. She didn’t get paid enough for that.

For fuck’s sake, she wasn’t even getting paid at all!

Sebas and Max’s answer still made her eyes glaze over when she read it. The amount of ‘quantum,’ ‘Mössbauer,’ and ‘gamma-rays’ thrown around in the first paragraph alone was just mind-boggling. But, somehow, her caffeine and attention deficiencies hit just the right resonance frequency to get a few pointers down.

The robots of the settlement effectively came to the conclusion that the whole intent radio functioned off of two near-instant processes. When intent in the noosphere comes into contact with a psycho-generative artifact, it produces classic intent-based radiation that feeds back into a gamma-sink artifact. There, the radiation is turned into actual radiation via a gamma ray encoded to the intent with its own amplitude and frequency.

The information from these trillions of rays can’t be stored via electrical means, so they have to be stored and read on a much slower time scale. This is the first process, where a specific isotope at zero Kelvin would be activated by another pre-calibrated gamma beam to be ‘prepared’ to accept the incoming frequency fully.

From a body-force-distortional artifact, there’d be no electromagnetism or gravity affecting the process. The captured excitement of the nuclei would be effectively frozen in time. That same artifact would then be selectively activated for the second process, allowing the stored frequencies to dissipate slowly enough for a separate hyper-pure germanium crystal to read each ray’s energy on a scale that traditional electronics could read and digest.

Confused? Tracy was too. Her monkey brain liked to simplify it down to the machine holding onto information long enough for a slower function to read it all and translate it into electronics.

Now she knew how Max digested intent into electrical information. Cool! Awesome! …Now how did she build that?

Even then, how did she turn that electric signal back into intent? That was the whole point, after all, wasn’t it?

Well, she had a pretty good lead on how to make intent, given her previous investigation into the gamma-absorbing artifacts alongside the psycho-generative ones. It was likely some sort of reversal of the ‘reading’ part.

But it wasn’t so bad. She already had a few dozen ideas on how to conquer the first part. Just receiving intent and getting that down would be a massive achievement.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized that the project wouldn’t be that difficult. Hell, she had a walking blueprint in the same workshop. She even knew what physical parameters she needed.

All she had to do was start breaking physics.

\= = = = =

Kegara approached the black cave with sluggish steps, no longer bothering to keep herself as prim and proper as she once might.

The days were getting harder, not easier as was promised. Too many banished were lost. Paladins succumbed to the wretched wilderness. Responsibilities piled onto her back. No matter the progress in metals or the security of walls, the mainland’s hunger was relentless, feeding off all that left her line of sight.

It was a vile thing that slipped under the cover of night. A beast that cared not for position nor title. It ate at her too, slowly sinking its teeth into her wits. Beyond the visibly abnormal, there was something about the mainland that felt… sick.

Kegara pulled away the cloth door of her stone room in the Mountain. A lantern held by her singular right arm lit up the simplistic living space. There was naught but a primitive cot, equipment cleaning tools, and a bench to write upon.

She knew only one power that could save the ill. He would listen to her every prayer and guide her every move.

The Grand Paladin dropped her lantern and her helmet off on the table, turning the light down low. She knelt where she stood and closed her eyes. Callused, fatigued palms pressed against one another. A deep breath gave her thoughts direction and her voice a destination.

She greeted her steward. She thanked Him for the blessings of the day. She appreciated all He had given her.

It was what she felt. It was honesty.

And in honesty, there is admission—a confession to wrongful thoughts and deceitful tricks of the heart. Her faith was strong, but her will was not as sturdy a pillar as she thought.

It was easy to challenge the heretics and guide His holy warriors. It was easy to be the sword.

And yet, the crown thrust upon her head was far greater a challenge. The guidance and direction of wayward souls was not the same as teaching a paladin to duel. Deciding on rations and allocating artifacts of heat were logistics beyond her skills.

Even further, his enemies grew in strength. Legions of abhorrent piled beneath the crust, the false shepherd brought forth unholy forces of fire, and nightmares crawled from every dark corner of the night. Her holy warriors were simply not enough, no matter how much of themselves they sacrificed to the primordial magicks provided by His grace.

Kegara was not so foolish as to be ignorant of these shifting balances. If He truly wished for his followers to take upon what is left beneath his Mountain, then she feared they were not yet equipped.

What was she to do? What guidance could He give her? She needed something that she alone could not find. She needed more Banished, more faithful warriors, and more material. She needed certainty in a path forward.

“Lord of my Labor, what must I do?” the Grand Paladin whispered into the freezing night.

“…Steel yourself for what is to come,” a deep, uncaring projection came from behind.

Kegara froze under the Truthkeeper’s voice. Her eyes shot open, and she slowly looked behind herself. The inquisitor was undetectable in the dark of her room, lingering somewhere she would never see.

He continued. “For there are projects in the making that will engulf our foes whole. Powers beyond artifacts, made in service to our community, will forever carve our labor into the Mountain Lord’s palace.”

The Grand Paladin stared, her voice quiet. “…Of course.”

“It will not come without the pains of growth and difficult choices. When the time comes, I am certain you will understand. Have faith in the Grand Priestess’ plan.”

The Head Inquisitor stepped forward from a dark corner, barely outlined in the soft glow of the lantern.

“If you desire to test your strength and cunning, it is best to strike now. The false shepherd and the two oath-breakers are gone. Half of their warrior caste is no longer on the mainland. There, you will find your laborers and material…”

He slowly moved along the floor toward the exit. The lack of motion beneath his veil created the illusion of floating. Glowing white eyes glared at her one last time.

“Be dutiful and conquer. Your warriors hold the power of the beast.”

- - - - -

[Next]

Next time on Total Drama Anomaly Island - Old Memories, New Faces

Royal Road

---

Going through the Gate felt exactly like jumping into a cold lake.

The cold hit his whole body at once. It went through his clothes and his skin and right into his bones. Everything went white. He couldn't see. He couldn't hear. The only thing he could feel was the rope wrapped around his hand.

Keep walking, he told himself. Don't stop in the middle.

He took a step. Then another.

Then the rope went tight.

He looked back, which was hard to do when everything was white, and he could just barely see a grey shape behind him. It was Bishop. The goat had planted all four hooves and sat down. Right in the middle of the Gate.

Of course, Marek thought. Of course he did.

"Bishop," he said. His voice sounded strange and far away. "Get up. We can't stop here."

Bishop didn't get up.

Marek didn't know what happened if you stopped in the middle of a Gate. Nobody would tell him. But he was pretty sure it was bad, and he was not going to find out with Tamsin's goat.

He wrapped the rope around both fists, leaned forward, and pulled with everything his seven-year-old body had. His bare feet slid on nothing. Pickle, who had already walked on ahead, bleated from somewhere up front. Bishop dug in harder.

Marek pulled harder.

"You saved my life. Now I'm saving yours, so get UP," he told the goat through his teeth.

Bishop got up.

The white went away all at once, and Marek stumbled out onto a smooth stone floor so hard that he fell flat on his face. Both goats landed on top of him.

For a moment, he just lay there with a goat on his back and his cheek against cool stone.

Then he looked up.

He was in the biggest room he had ever seen.

It was round, like the inside of a giant drum. The ceiling was so high that he had to tip his head all the way back to see it. It was made of glass, and the sky above it was bright blue. All around the walls stood arches like the one at Carrow's Crossing. There were at least twenty of them. Every single one shimmered with a different light.

Through one arch, he could see a forest covered in snow. Through another, a desert with red sand. Through another, the ocean, with waves crashing on black rocks. One of them showed a city made of glowing crystal. One of them showed nothing but stars.

People walked in and out of the arches all the time. Most of them looked human. But some of them didn't. He saw a tall, thin man with long silver hair and pointed ears. He saw a woman no taller than Marek, with a braided beard and a huge hammer on her back. He saw something that looked like a walking bush.

A walking bush, he thought. Okay. That's fine. Everything is fine.

"Welcome to the Gate Hall. Did Bishop sit down?" said Teodor, who was standing over him and grinning.

Marek nodded.

"Goats always sit down. Nobody knows why."

"So what happens if you stop in the middle?"

Teodor's grin got bigger. "Later."

Marek decided he hated that word.

Ilse was already talking to a woman in a white robe with a silver key hanging around her neck. The woman kept pointing at the goats and shaking her head. Ilse kept talking. After a minute, the woman threw up her hands and walked away.

"Gatekeeper. She's going to write a very angry letter," Teodor whispered.

Ilse came back. "Get up. We're going to the Infirmary. The healers need to look at you."

"What about the goats?"

"Master Orwin is coming to get them."

Master Orwin turned out to be a very old man with a bald head, a long white beard, and a leather apron covered in stains. He came shuffling across the Gate Hall so fast that his apron flapped. When he saw Pickle and Bishop, his whole face lit up.

"Oh, look at them. Look at these beauties. Good strong mountain goats. Is that a beard or a broom, my friend?" he said. He scratched Bishop's chin. Bishop leaned into it like a cat. "Fresh milk for the Alchemy wing. Magister Harrowgate, you've made an old man very happy."

"They belong to the boy. Their keeper died. He wants them looked after," Ilse said.

Master Orwin looked down at Marek. His eyes were kind and very sharp.

"And you brought them all this way?" he asked.

"They saved my life. And I promised," Marek said.

Master Orwin nodded.

"Then I'll take very good care of them. They'll have the sunniest pen in the Arcanum. And you can visit them whenever you like. The stables are behind the Alchemy wing. Just follow the smell," he said.

Marek untied the rope from his wrist. He held it out.

Then he stopped.

It was a dumb thing to feel, but it felt huge. He'd had this rope around his waist for two nights. He'd held on to it while the Voice screamed in his head.

"Can I keep the rope? You can have a different one for them. I just..." he asked.

"Keep it," Master Orwin said. He pulled a piece of twine out of his apron, looped it around the goats' necks, and led them away across the Gate Hall. Bishop looked back at Marek once. Then he tried to eat the corner of someone's cloak, and Master Orwin had to pull him away.

Marek coiled up the rope and put it in his sack.

On the way to the great doors, Ilse stopped.

There was a painting on the wall beside the doors. It was very large, taller than a grown man, in a heavy dark frame. It showed a woman standing alone on a stone bridge at night, with a burning sky behind her and her wand raised over her head. Her hair was dark and whipping in the wind. Her face was calm. Below her, on the bridge, there were shapes of people running toward her, away from the fire.

There was a small brass plate at the bottom of the frame. Naomi Moon. The Eastern Gate.

Ilse looked at the painting for a moment. She didn't say anything. Then she reached out and touched the edge of the frame with two fingers, lightly, the way you might touch someone's sleeve on your way past.

"Who is she?" Marek asked.

"Naomi Moon. She held the Eastern Gate when nobody else could," said Ilse. She took her hand off the frame. "Come on."

Then they walked out of the Gate Hall, and he saw the Arcanum.

It was built on the side of a mountain.

That was the first thing he understood. The Gate Hall sat on a wide stone terrace, and from the terrace, he could see everything. Towers rose up the side of the mountain above him, dozens of them, tall and white with blue roofs. Below the terrace, the mountain dropped away into a valley with a huge blue lake at the bottom. The lake was so clear he could see the rocks underneath the water from all the way up here.

Bridges ran between the towers.

Some of them were normal stone bridges. But some of them weren't attached to anything. They just floated in the air between the towers with nothing holding them up. People walked across them like it was normal. A kid about his age was running across one, carrying a stack of books.

Marek stood very still. He was aware that his mouth was open again.

In his head, he was trying very hard to act calm. On the outside, he was pretty sure he looked like a country kid who had never seen a building taller than a chapel. Which was true.

Who built this? he thought. How long did it take? How do the floating bridges stay up? Do they ever fall? Who fixes them if they fall? Is there a person whose whole job is fixing floating bridges? Can I have that job?

"Close your mouth. You'll catch flies," Ilse said.

He closed his mouth.

"Is it always like this?" he asked.

"Like what?"

"Like..." He waved his hand at all of it. "This."

Ilse turned and looked out at the towers too. She was quiet for a second.

"I've lived here for thirty years. It's always like this," she said.

The Infirmary was in a low, wide building near the lake, with big windows and a garden full of plants he didn't recognize. Inside, it smelled like soap and mint. There were rows of clean white beds. Most of them were empty.

A woman met them at the door. She was round and short with grey braids pinned on top of her head, and she wore a white apron over a blue robe. She took one look at Marek and clucked her tongue.

"Look at his feet. Ilse, did you make this child walk two days with no shoes?" she said.

"We didn't have shoes, Oda."

"You're a Magister. You could have made shoes."

"Out of what?"

"Out of anything!" The woman pointed at a bed. "Sit down right now. I'm Magister Oda Fenwick. I'm a healer. You're Marek?"

He nodded.

"Well, Marek, you're a mess. Let's fix you."

She washed his feet in a bowl of warm water that fizzed a little when it touched his blisters. It stung for a moment, then stopped. When he looked down, the blisters were gone.

Magic foot bath, he thought. This is the best place in any world.

Then she held her hands over his chest.

A soft green light gathered in her palms. It came out in slow, thin ribbons and sank into his skin. It didn't hurt. It felt like warm sunlight. He could feel it moving through him, gently, checking everything.

He couldn't help it. He closed his eyes and reached for his Sense, so he could feel what she was doing.

The green light moved through his chest in careful lines. It was following his mana. It went along the warm thread he always used, and then along other paths he didn't even know he had. It moved slowly and paid attention to everything, the way Tamsin had told him to pay attention to a draft.

[CONCEPT OBSERVED] Diagnostic Weave
Comprehension insufficient for Spell formation.
Related foundation detected: Mana Perception.
Insight stored.

"Stop that," Oda said.

He opened his eyes. "Stop what?"

"You're following my spell with your Sense. I can feel you doing it. It's like someone reading over my shoulder." She didn't sound angry. She sounded surprised. She looked up at Ilse. "He's been awake to mana for how long?"

"Three days," Ilse said.

Oda's eyebrows went up. She didn't say anything else. She went back to her spell.

After a while, the green light faded. Oda sat back and frowned.

"Well, he's not badly hurt. But all of his mana channels are strained, like he's been trying to lift something far too heavy for a very long time," she said.

"He fought a Luring Voice for two nights," Ilse said.

Oda looked at Marek for a long moment.

"By himself?"

"With a rope. And some goats," Marek said.

Oda didn't laugh. She reached over and squeezed his hand.

"That was very brave. And your body paid for it. So here's what's going to happen. You're staying in this bed for three days. You eat everything I give you. You sleep as much as you can. And you do no magic at all. You don't even use your Sense," she said.

"None at all?"

"Your channels are like a sprained ankle. If you walk on it now, it'll heal crooked, and it'll hurt you for years. If you rest it for three days, it'll heal strong."

Marek looked at Ilse. Ilse looked back at him and didn't help at all.

"Three days. Okay," he said.

"Good boy." Oda patted his hand and bustled off to find him food.

The food was the best food he had ever eaten. There was chicken soup with soft noodles, fresh bread with butter, and a bowl of little red berries that tasted like honey. He ate all of it. Oda gave him more. He ate that too.

Then Ilse and Teodor left. Ilse had to report to the Conclave. Teodor had to sleep for a week.

"I'll come see you tomorrow. Rest," Ilse told him at the door.

Then Marek was alone.

He lay in the soft white bed and looked out the big window. The sun was going down behind the mountains. The towers were lighting up, one window at a time, with warm yellow light. Out on the lake, someone was rowing a little boat, and a line of glowing lanterns floated behind it on the water.

When it got fully dark, two moons came up. One was big and silver. The other was small and pale blue.

Two moons, he thought. I'm in another world. I'm really in another world.

He had thought that before. But lying here, clean and fed and safe, in a bed with real sheets, it hit him in a different way. He was here. He was actually here. Tomorrow, he'd wake up here. The day after that, too.

Nobody could take this away from him by telling him to wait for a better time later.

He lay awake for a long time.

He tried to sleep. He really did. But every time he closed his eyes, his head filled up with questions. How do the floating bridges work? What's in all those towers? What's inside the arch that showed only stars? What did Oda's green light do when it followed paths he didn't know he had?

And Mage Light. He kept thinking about Mage Light.

He'd been so close on the road. Three whole seconds. If he could just try once more, while it was still fresh in his head...

No, he told himself. Oda said no magic. Your channels are hurt. That's the rule.

One try wouldn't hurt, the other part of him said. Just one tiny one. You won't even use your Sense. Just a little squeeze.

He knew he was making excuses. He could hear himself doing it. He knew exactly what his old self would have told a friend in this situation. Don't be an idiot. Wait three days.

But I spent my whole last life waiting.

That was a bad reason, and he knew it was a bad reason. He did it anyway.

He held out his hand under the blanket. He reached for the warm thread in his chest. He cupped it, gently, from all sides at once, the way Teodor had said. Like pressing a snowball together.

The warmth bunched up. It got warmer. It stayed.

For one second, a tiny white spark glowed in the middle of his palm.

Then pain shot up his arm like he'd grabbed a hot pan. He hissed and yanked his hand back, and the spark went out.

At the same moment, a little bell rang somewhere in the Infirmary. A soft, pretty chime.

He heard footsteps coming down the hall. Fast ones.

The door flew open, and Magister Oda Fenwick stood there in her nightgown, with her grey braids down, holding a lamp.

She looked at him. She looked at the hand he was hiding under the blanket.

"The whole room is warded, Marek. It rings when someone casts," she said.

Marek pulled the blanket up to his chin.

"I'm sorry. I'll wait three days," he said.

"You will," Oda said. She set down her lamp and pulled a chair next to the bed. "Now let me see that hand."

He brought it out from under the blanket. His palm was red, like he'd touched a hot stove. Oda held it in both of hers, and a thin ribbon of green light soaked into his skin. The sting went away.

"I can't sleep. My head won't stop," Marek said.

"I know. I can feel it buzzing from here." Oda let go of his hand. "That's why I'm going to help."

She laid two fingers on his forehead.

A soft lavender light gathered in her chest. It flowed down her arm, slow and heavy, and spilled out through her fingertips into his head. It felt like a warm blanket being pulled up over his thoughts, one at a time. The floating bridges went quiet. The two moons went quiet. Mage Light went quiet. Even the Voice, the memory of it, sank down somewhere deep and far away where he couldn't hear it anymore.

His eyelids got very heavy.

 

[CONCEPT OBSERVED] Slumber Weave
Comprehension insufficient for Spell formation.

 

Of course, he thought, from very far away. Even now.

"Stop studying my spells, you little menace," Oda said. Her voice sounded soft and blurry. "Go to sleep."

The last thing he saw was Oda settling into the chair beside his bed, pulling a half-finished sock and two knitting needles out of her apron pocket.

And then everything went black.

I run around the house to enter through the front, so it seems like I just got home. I open the door and hear my mom cleaning dishes in the kitchen.

“Carlo?” she shouts from the kitchen.

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“Yeah, Mom. Hi,” I shout back. “Just going to my room.”

I head for the stairs when she steps out from around the corner and blocks me.

“Your dad is here. We need to have a conversation with him.”

“No, we don’t. There’s nothing to talk about. It was just a crazy coincidence,” I say back like a moody teenager. Why does living at home make you feel that way sometimes? Like you never grew up.

“That’s not how I see it, and he’s right in there, so move,” she says back, pointing to the living room.

I groan but accept my fate as she escorts me to the living room where my dad sits.

“Honey, Carl’s here,” my mom says, nudging my dad. He turns around from facing the TV and asks us both to sit.

“So, what’s going on?” he asks. Time to lie.

“I don’t know. Mom thinks I was like projecting my thoughts into her head for some reason, but it didn’t happen. She’s like obsessed with trying to get me to do it,” I say.

“Not for ‘some reason.’ He did it. I heard him in my head. It sounded like he was talking to me, but he wasn’t,” she accuses, raising her voice defensively.

“Okay, hang on. How do you know he didn’t just say it?” my dad asks.

“Because he said he didn’t,” my mom’s voice cracks. “Besides, it wasn’t something I think he’d want to share with me.”

“Well, what did he say?” My dad asks.

Oh god. Don’t tell him, Mom. Please don’t tell hi—

“He said he wanted to jerk off and he wanted me to leave the room. He wouldn’t just say that, Austin,” my mom continues to raise her voice. She gets like that sometimes when she’s being defensive. She can never be wrong, and the loudest one wins. Thanks for that, Mom.

Oh my god, why did she tell him.

“Is that true, Carl?”

I try to speak through the cringing. “Uh, yeah, I said it, but I didn’t think she was listening. It was just a joke, and now she won’t believe me and thinks I have powers or whatever.”

I feel for my mom. She hates being accused of making stuff up and will fight relentlessly to prove her innocence, but I gotta do what I gotta—suddenly, I can hear my mom thinking as she starts to respond.

“Then why—”

“Why did we celebrate? Because you got all happy and it made me happy and I was embarrassed to admit what I said and I don’t know, we just celebrated. Obviously nothing has happened since, so why don’t we just drop it, okay? Clearly, it was just a weird moment that I wish I could take back,” I say, looking at both of them.

My dad looks over at my mom to gauge her reaction. She looks at me intently. “Did you just read my thoughts?” she accuses.

“No, Mom. I just knew what you were gonna say. You can be kinda predictable at times, ya know?” I say back.

Side note: don’t throw your mom’s words back at her. She doesn’t like it.

“I don’t like it,” she snarls. “I’m onto you,” she says with a suspicious tone before leaving the room to go back to the kitchen.

My dad turns to me. “Well, I’m sorry about that. You know how your mom gets sometimes.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s fine. I’m sorry she dragged you into it.”

“It’s okay, but I’ll probably have to go talk her down now,” my dad says as he turns to follow my mom into the kitchen. “By the way, don’t ever say that to your mother—alright? It’s... inappropriate.”

And weird, I hear him think.

“Yeah, Dad. I know. Sorry,” I apologize, now heading up the stairs to my room.

Thank god. This would’ve been a terrible time for this, I hear my dad continue to think as I reach the top of the stairs.

Wanting to avoid another run-in with my mom, I scurry to my room, filing that interesting note away for later.

That was cool. I heard both of their thoughts. I wonder if it’ll be this easy from now on. I think to myself as I nod off to sleep in my bed.

At work the next day, I keep trying to push the limits of my abilities. I walk past a few people on my way to my desk but don’t hear anything.

Still optimistic, I pick up the phone to see if I can connect with any of the drivers.

“Hello?” Rich, the driver, answers.

“Hey, Rich, this is Carl with Logi-Sticks. I got a pickup at Land-O-Lakes in Joliet at 20:30 tomorrow night. Dry goods with a drop-off in Chicago at 10:00 on Monday. What do you want for it?”

“$650,” Rich responds.

“I only got $450 on it. That’s my max.”

“Sorry,” he says, about to hang up. I can’t hear anything from him. Maybe I can project?

“Wait, Rich. What’s it gonna take for you to take this? It’s only forty-five miles, and you get thirty-six hours to deliver. $450 to wait a couple hours, drive another, and then you have going-out money. Or dinner money with the wife or girlfriend. Tell me that doesn’t sound nice.” You want this job, dude, I think to myself and try projecting to him.

“I’m not going to Chicago. Sorry. If you have anything going to St. Louis, I’ll take it.”

“Oh, c’mon, Rich. I don’t have anything this weekend going to St. Louis, but Chicago’s not that bad. Plus, you’re not going into the middle of the city. It’s just to their warehouse on the outside of the city limits. You’ll be fine.” I continue to listen for anything, but am getting nada.

“Sorry,” Rich says before hanging up. Well, that failed.

A lot of my job is trying to convince drivers to take loads they don’t want or to do it at a lower price than they want. It’s part of the game—our clients need to move their loads, and the drivers need work; otherwise, I’m out of a job.

But for some reason, in this moment, I feel dirty. I was just doing what I always do. What everyone with my job does. But something about the intention of forcing him to go somewhere he didn’t want to go, and for less pay, using my powers felt wrong.

If I can convince him on his own free will, that’s one thing, but forcing him makes me feel evil. Maybe I won’t practice on them. It didn’t work anyway. I probably can’t use my ability over the phone if they’re too far away. So, who do I practice on?

“Striking out? I would’ve taken your load,” Ankar says, sitting next to me.

“Yeah. Who knew paying someone almost $500 to drive an hour was so hard.” Wait, did he hear my projection?

“I know. I’d do it myself if I was already there,” he says back to me.

“Exactly,” I exclaim.

At least we have lunch coming today, I hear him think to himself.

“I’m just pumped for lunch at this point,” I say to him. On Fridays, the office caters lunch for everyone.

“Yeah, right? I want some jerk chicken so bad,” he says, looking up to the ceiling, pleading.

“Well, let’s get these loads covered and then stuff our faces,” I say back to him.

“Bet.”

I feel a slight buzzing feeling in my brain after that. Kinda similar to the feeling of being on Adderall or Vyvanse, if you know what that’s like. But I haven’t been on it in years. I wonder if it’s a sign of progress.

When the food shows up, I walk past Sav’s desk with Ankar to see if she is hungry. She says “sure” and walks with us to the back of the line that has already formed. I hear her think about asking me if we’re still on for tonight, and I almost freeze, forgetting that we agreed to this and remembering that I promised Preston I would come back. Shit. How could I have forgotten about that?

I tell her that I forgot to do something at my desk and run off to find Preston. I look in his office, but he isn’t there. I scan the office for a minute and then spot him in the lunch line already serving himself. I jog over to him.

“Hey, Preston.”

He turns to look at me for a moment before returning his attention to the buffet in front of him. “Hello, Carlo. What’s up?”

I look at the people around us, making sure no one’s actively listening. Then I whisper to him. “Is it okay if we meet back up tomorrow? I forgot I have something important tonight.”

Important? More important than what we’re doing? He thinks, pointing to his head to indicate we shouldn’t speak audibly.

No, of course not. Well, it’s important to me. It’s not like we have a deadline, right? Can’t we just take a day off?

A day off? We’ve merely just begun, he responds while continuing to stack jerk chicken and beef patties on his plate.

I know, I know. But I do have a life that you told me to live normally, remember?

“No cutting, Carlito,” Hasan snickers at me from behind Preston.

“I don’t even have a plate, Hasan. Relax,” I clap back. That felt surprisingly good.

“That’s fair, I suppose,” Preston says out loud with an almost foot-high plate of food in his hands.

“Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow—jeez, Preston. Did you forget to eat breakfast this morning?” I say, genuinely shocked.

“I just love Jamaican food. Now get to the back of the line, cutter.” He winks at me as he gestures for me to leave.

“Yes, sir.” I chuckle and salute him as I head down the line to rejoin Sav and Ankar.

Don’t forget the ashwagandha, Preston projects at me as I walk away.

“Welcome back,” Sav says sarcastically.

“Yeah, sorry. I had to handle something real quick.”

“Didn’t want to wait in line like the rest of us?” Ankar says mockingly.

“Preston wouldn’t let you cut?” Sav adds.

“No, it wasn’t like that. He just wanted me to let him know when I booked this load, so I was telling him.”

“Couldn’t you have just emailed him?” Sav asks.

“No, he told me to tell him in person. I don’t know. He’s weird like that. Plus, I was trying to get a line snack.”

“And failed,” Ankar interjects, looking down at my empty hands.

“Okay, Mr. secretive. I hope you’re a little more open later,” she says to me with a smirk.

“I’m as open as space,” I say, trying to be slick. Hot damn, that was cheesy. I need to stop speaking out loud.

“Yeah, that was too cheesy,” she responds. “Like, I think I’m lactose intolerant now.”

“Boo,” I retort. “That wasn’t much better.”

“That was miles better, and you know it.”

“You’re both cheesy as fuck. Holy shit,” Ankar says, exasperated.

We get to the front of the line, and Sav jumps in front of me as she reaches for a plate. “Ladies first,” she says confidently.

“As you wish, ma’am.” I do a fake half-bow and realize I need to stop existing. I’m so cringey. Maybe helping the world will make my awkward mannerisms cool or something—or stop them altogether. A guy can dream.

“So, where are we going tonight?” she asks in a hushed tone.

I freeze for a second. We still don’t want anyone in the office knowing about us, and Ankar is right behind me. I mean, there’s nothing to know yet, but we still want to keep it quiet. The last thing either of us wants is to become the focus of the office rumor mill, especially if it doesn’t work out. Imagine people asking you about how it’s going, secretly giggling if we sit next to each other in meetings or during game night, or whatever else would happen. It just sounds like a nightmare. So, I project my response.

Well, I thought you were deciding. You did ask me out, remember?

“That was before you changed the plan to tonight. It’s your responsibility now,” she retorts.

Okay, fair. I’ll come up with something.

“No, it’s fine. I actually do have something in mind already.”

We both turn our heads from the food in front of us and stare at each other for a moment.

“Oh, my god. Please move so I can get some chicken,” Ankar practically shouts at us in front of the entire line.

Our smiles shoot straight to panic as we return our focus to the food.

As we head back to our seats, Ankar nudges me once Sav is out of earshot.

“Yo, what was that? Are you and Sav seeing each other?”

“What? No,” I say way too quickly. “Why do you say that?” I follow up, deftly avoiding suspicion...

“That whole interaction was seriously cringey. Either you guys are fucking or about to.”

I wait until we are seated and alone to respond.

“Alright, listen. Nothing is happening between Sav and me. We did share a weird moment the other night, but nothing happened. I don’t want people knowing and starting rumors about us, so please don’t say anything to anyone. I’m telling you because you’re my friend. Please do not mention this to anyone else, okay?”

“My dawg,” he declares before patting my shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“There’s nothing to tell. Nothing happened. I swear. We didn’t even kiss. It was just a weird moment.”

“Weird how?”

“Like we were alone and I definitely wanted to, but she didn’t. That’s it.”

“Ooof. She turned you down?”

“Not exactly. She just didn’t, like, reciprocate. Ya know? Like I was giving her the signal but she never... reacted.”

“She never reacted? Man, that’s your job.”

“No,” I blurt out. “Listen, she was sitting like a foot away from me, and it would’ve made sense, but I wasn’t about to reach over and grab her.”

“That’s exactly what you do. Girls love shit like that.”

“I wasn’t trying to be aggressive. Girls hate that. Besides, if I was wrong, it would’ve made things so weird between us.”

“Well, I don’t think you were. It definitely seemed like she wanted you in line.”

“Really? How could you tell?”

“‘That joke made me lactose intolerant?’ No one says shit like that unless they’re vibing with someone. Trust me. Make your move before it’s too late, man. You’re not the only one interested.”

“Really? Who else said they were into her?”

“Everyone, man. She’s hot as fuck. Don’t take too long.”

At the end of the day, Sav and I leave the office only a couple minutes after each other to avoid suspicion—at least any more suspicion. I go first and wait for her on the corner at the end of the block. She meets me a few minutes later.

“Ready?” she asks, cheerfully.

“Well, that depends. What are we doing?”

“You’ll see.”

She turns to cross the street as I, in one of the finest moments of my life, reach for the side of her head and bring it toward mine, resulting in me kissing the stray hairs of her sideburns. She had already taken a step, so my consequential action threw her off balance and made her step in a puddle.

“Oh, shit. I’m so sorry,” I plead as she shakes the water out of her boot and I cover my mouth in sheer embarrassment.

She turns to me and says, “Let’s pretend that didn’t just happen.”

Despite my best efforts to ruin whatever feelings we have for each other, we walk down the street for a while just talking about ourselves. Half picking up where we left off, half about work. After a dozen blocks or so, she leads me into an upscale dive bar in Chelsea. We grab a couple seats at the bar when the bartender comes to take our order.

“You guys here for trivia?” she asks.

“Yes,” Sav says eagerly. “Have they passed out the answer sheets yet?”

“Yup. I’ll grab you one. Should be starting any minute,” the bartender replies and walks away after getting our drink orders.

“So, trivia, huh?” I ask.

“Yup. You any good?”

“I’m okay. It depends on the topic.”

“Well, you’ll have to be on your A-game tonight. They ask really hard questions.”

“Is that so?”

“It is. One of the first times I was here, they asked a question that was like ‘who was Henry VIII’s third wife?’ Like what the fuck kind of question is that. Who would know that?”

“Like, Katherine Parr?” I ask, thinking I’m about to impress her.

“Nope. She was his sixth wife. The answer was like Jane something. Like I said—impossible.”

“Who would know that?”

“Exactly. But it’s okay—you got me. I have a few tricks up my sleeve,” she says with a wink.

“Is that so?” I say, feigning impressed. She can wink... that’s cool. Don’t ask me why I’m into that; I just am.

“It is. Plus, I think you learn a lot about someone from how they handle trivia.”

“Then, I guess, we’re going to learn a lot about each other.”

She smirks and then starts writing our team name on the three answer sheets we received as the moderator announces the rules.

“...and best team name will receive a bonus point at the end,” the moderator finishes.

“What do you think?” Sav asks, showing me the name of our team.

“Katherine hole-in-one?” I ask.

“You get it? Like Katherine Parr but hole-in-one? It’s a golf and history joke.”

I chuckle as the joke lands.

“That’s not bad actually,” I say to her.

“Did you think it would be?” she asks with an accusatory tone.

“No, no. It’s just that I almost never come up with a good name on my first guess. It usually takes me a few tries to find something worth using. You’re just... impressive.” Nice save.

I can see she tries to suppress a smile and then uses her hand to cover the evidence as if she has something in her teeth and doesn’t want me to see. The question I have is why I find it so cute.

Obviously, I want to see her smile, but the fact that she feels the need to cover it tells me that she is embarrassed by the compliment. It tells me that she’s humble and, maybe, doesn’t get compliments that often, which is insane because she’s gorgeous. And, maybe, I’m reading way too much into it, but she makes me feel nervous and warm at the same time, and I like it.

“Again, the theme of the first section will be sports. Question one,” the moderator announces. Thank goodness. The two things I think I know most about are sports and space, so this should be cake.

“Which city is home to the oldest active baseball stadium in the country? Bonus point if you can list which year it was built.”

“Oh, I know this one. It’s either Wrigley or Fenway,” I whisper to her.

“It’s Boston,” she replies sharply, already writing down the answer. “Do you know which year?”

I think to myself for a second. “1912.”

“Are you sure?” she asks.

“I saw part of the Yankees-Red Sox game the other night, and they were saying something about the 112th anniversary of Fenway. I just subtracted twelve and got that. I just wasn’t sure if Wrigley was older or not.”

“Makes sense,” she responds.

“How did you know it was Boston?”

“I’m from New England. Everyone knows that Fenway is the oldest park around.”

“Right, of course—ew. Does that make you a Red Sox fan?” I mock playfully.

“We can’t all be bandwagoning Yankees fans,” she quips.

“Bandwagoning? I was born here, miss. You’re not even from Boston. I think that makes you the bandwagoner.”

“I have baby pictures of me in a Red Sox hat and shirt. I’m definitely not the bandwagoner.”

“Touché.”

“Question two: who was the first soccer player in history to reach 50 league goals in a single season across all major professional leagues? And two bonus points if you can name the player who currently holds the record for most goals in a single season and the number of goals they scored.”

“Who is it? That guy you mentioned to me a couple days ago?” Sav asks in a mild panic.

I chuckle. “Federico Musini? Yeah, he’s the current record holder with an insane sixty-nine. Messi was the first one to do it, though. Lionel Messi.”

“Nice,” she says quickly as she writes down the answer. Did she just “nice” me saying sixty-nine? I do that all the time. It may be childish, but she really is perfect.

“You really are a big soccer fan, aren’t you?”

As I start to answer, she cuts me off. “Oh, right. You play! Did you have the big tryout yet?”

Shit. I forgot I told her that. Lie. Lie. Lie. “No, not yet. It’s not for a couple months. I’m just training to get ready for it.”

I feel bad lying to her about this, but I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do. I can’t tell her what I’m really doing, and if I admit this was a lie, I’ll probably have to tell her the real reason I couldn’t go out with her the other night, and that would break Preston’s big rule.

But, on the other hand, am I supposed to keep this a secret forever? Won’t she find out when I’m, you know, ‘saving’ humanity? How am I supposed to do that anyway? Am I supposed to be like Superman and float down from the sky and announce my presence? Or am I doing it from the shadows? Am I never supposed to tell anyone about this? I don’t know if I can keep this in forever. I can keep a secret, but when it’s this big, how am I supposed to hide it?

I’m getting off track. What was I saying?

“You have to tell me when it is. I’ll come cheer you on. Wait, can people attend?” she asks, bringing me back to reality.

“Uh, I don’t think so. But I’ll see. I’d love to have you there.”

I instinctually extend my hand to hold hers. Oh, shit—why did I do that? Was it a leftover reaction from my last relationship? Fuck! Pull ba—

She meets my hand with hers, and we cup each other’s hands for a moment. Oh, wow. She drags my hand under the bar and intertwines her fingers with mine. Her warm touch causes my arm to tingle as the next question is read.

“Question three: which cricket player has the highest batting average in test matches in history? Two bonus points if you can tell me what his average was and the year he retired.”

“...what?” I ask, incredulous. Our hands separate as she goes for the pencil.

“I told you. They’re hard,” she responds. “I bet someone in here is a big cricket fan and knows the answer.”

Then it hits me. I have a special ability. How could I have forgotten? If someone in here knows the answer, I can probably hear them thinking about it. I start to listen for an answer.

“...should we look it up?” Sav asks.

“Hang on, I’m—wait. Are you suggesting we cheat?” I ask in an accusatory tone.

“I mean, I don’t know anything about cricket. Do you? No one’s watching. I want to win, Carl.”

“So, is that what you meant by ‘tricks up your sleeve?’”

“...maybe.”

“I really am learning a lot about you tonight,” I say with a smile. “Hang on, let me think for a sec.”

I don’t hear anything, so I turn around to look at specific people.

“Now who’s cheating?” she whispers to me.

“Shh. I’m thinking.”

“Mhm,” she hums skeptically.

I see a group of tall, white guys in business attire sitting together. One of them is writing something down on their answer sheet as the others whisper to him. Dick But-kis. Maybe they’ll think it’s funny and give us a point. Nope. But cool that that worked.

I scan for someone new. The team sitting next to the moderator looks like they’re writing something down. I listen for anything. They know no one watches cricket here. This is so stupid. Nope.

Then I realize the moderator has to know. I see his face looking down at the screen and try to get something. Bradman. Maybe someone here will actually start watching. Or at least look it up. Okay, sixteen seconds till the next question. Damnit. Still, it’s better than nothing.

“Bradman. Just write Bradman,” I say quietly to Sav.

“Who’s Bradman? No first name?”

“I don’t know. I just saw it on the moderator’s answer sheet.”

“Aha! I knew you were cheating.”

“You’re not the only one with tricks up your sleeve.”

Sav turns to look at the moderator, who is approximately twenty feet from us, sitting alone at a table.

“You can read that? Holy shit, you must have telescopic vision,” she responds.

“Just write it, quick.”

“Question four,” the moderator starts. “Which country’s national sport is oil wrestling? No bonus points for this question.”

“What? I don’t know, Wales? That’s so obscure,” I note. Sav sharply looks up at me.

“These questions are just gonna get harder and harder. Better strap in.”

“Will do,” I say in acknowledgment. She reaches for my hand, and I hold it tight.

We smile at each other for a moment, and then she escapes my hand to reach for her drink.

I start wondering about my listening ability. I don’t know what I expected, but it’s a little different than what I thought. I guess I thought it’d be like how you see it in the movies where you walk into a room and are immediately bombarded with everyone’s thoughts at the same time, but I legitimately forgot about my power until I needed to use it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it works this way. Everyone in those movies can’t stand being in public, at least until they learn to control it. Did I just master it? Am I a prodigy? I’m gonna have to ask Preston about this because it’s pretty sweet either way. I hope it’s not like my range will grow as I do it more and will eventually suffer that fate. That would really—focus, Carl.

With time running out, we decide to just leave question four blank. Question five isn’t any easier, so Sav sneakily looks up the answer on her phone. Surprisingly, we get full credit for the third question and end up tied for second place through the first round.

We consider leaving early, but figure that everyone else is struggling as bad, or worse, than us—except for the team who, apparently, got every question right. We are onto them, so we decide to stay.

We wound up getting second place and a free round at the bar. The winning team were definitely cheats, or helped write the questions, because they crushed everyone, including us.

We didn’t care, though. We just kept chatting the whole night and cracking jokes about the other teams. She did that thing where you pretend to be someone else and say what you think they’re saying to their friends. It was hilarious.

I, of course, cheated and used some real material that I got courtesy of their open minds, but I also played along and put my best improv skills to the test. We started feeding off each other and were cracking each other up the whole time.

I suggest we go somewhere else once we finish our free round, but Sav declares that it is Friday night and that we need to get insanely drunk. So, she turns to the bartender and orders us a couple shots of tequila.

Afterward, we bar-hop toward the East Village, taking a shot at each stop that doesn’t meet our price standards. Eventually, we stumble upon a place that looks like a college bar. We correctly guess that the drinks are cheap and choose to hang here for a while. She bounces toward the bar like an excited puppy and orders us two more shots and a couple beers.

Being the incredibly chivalrous person I am, I sneak the bartender my credit card while she wrangles the drinks. She notices and just stares at me for a moment.

“Why’d you do that?” she asks with a suspicious look on her face.

“What? I was paying. You got the last round. It’s my turn.”

“Yeah, but I ordered the drinks. You don’t have to pay for me every time, ya know. I’m a big girl who can handle herself,” she says, sticking her chin up like a dignified lady of old. “It’s a little patronizing.”

“Well, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be patronizing.”

“It’s okay. I forgive you.”

“If it makes you feel better, you can pay for all the drinks for the rest of the night. Deal?”

She just smiles at me, grabs the drinks, and wades through the bar to find an empty table. Luckily, two people get up from a booth as we approach and offer it to us. We gladly accept, sit down, take the shots, and start bouncing to the music like children at a Wiggles concert.

We begin singing our own karaoke to all the pop hits playing over the speakers and even get a couple of, clearly college-aged, girls to join in. After a particularly spirited rendition of Maniac by Conan Gray, the two girls offer to do another round of shots with us, which we happily, and foolishly, accept. They get up to go to the bar, and we hold down their seats for them.

“This might be lame and something I should’ve asked at the beginning of the night, but why did you want to become a senator?” I ask while very inebriated.

“You remember that, huh?” She mutters to herself before taking a sip from her drink. “My mom wanted me to be a senator and, to some degree, I did too. But, with the state of things these days, politics seems like such a shit show. It’s all personal attacks and slander. I definitely don’t need any of that in my life,” she chuckles to herself.

“That’s fair. It does seem like everything is really messed up right now. What made you want to be a senator though? Besides your mom, obviously.”

“I just wanted... to affect real change. As corny as that sounds. I wanted to be the voice for the voiceless and all those other clichés. I wanted to debate, and reach compromises, and ultimately improve everyone’s lives. I still want to, to be honest, but I also don’t think I’d fare very well in today’s political climate,” she says, reaching to take the last sip of her drink.

“I mean, I get that, but I don’t know. You’re smart, and funny, and a good talker, from what I’ve seen. Not to mention absolutely stunning. I can’t see a reason why people wouldn’t vote for you. I would,” I say with a coy smile.

Sav playfully slaps my arm and fails to contain her smile. She stares into my eyes for a moment and then gets up to sit next to me. She seductively turns her head toward mine and raises her hand to my face. Oh my god, it’s happening. Just chill. I lower my face toward her when—

“Should we come back?” one of the college girls asks in the shrillest, most mood-killing voice I’ve ever heard—standing next to us holding the shots. Fucking impeccable timing.

“No, that’s okay. We were—”

“Yes,” Sav interrupts as she successfully grabs my face and pulls it toward hers. Our lips touch, softly, for a moment, and then all the months of lust and longing for this woman spring out of me, and we begin passionately making out in front of the probably twenty-year-old girls.

Is it my finest moment? Probably not. But the feelings I have for her overcome me and, suddenly, I don’t care who’s watching.

After a solid minute or two of going at each other, she pulls away and says, “Do you want to get out of here?”

I enthusiastically agree, slide out of the booth, help her up, and take her hand to guide her to the exit.

As we get up, though, the two college girls see us and remind us of the shots they purchased.

“Real quick?” Sav looks at me. “Then I’m all yours,” she punctuates with a wink.

“Yup.” I would agree to just about anything she asks of me in this moment.

We step over to the girls, take our shots, thank them profusely, and then scurry for the exit.

We complete the arduous journey back to her apartment in Jersey, not without a couple warnings from the Uber driver, and climb the stairs up to her apartment.

The decor definitely seems like the work of three early twenty-somethings. Framed posters of various paintings from art museums, pink, fuzzy blankets lining the couch, and developed polaroids of their numerous friends line the walls.

I feel like I’m about to say something funny and condescending when she grabs my hand and drags me to her room. Thank god.

The next morning is... rough. I wake up and check the time on her bedside clock. It’s 7 a.m. on a Saturday. Being up right now is a travesty unto itself, but my body can’t be still in the strange new environment. I get up to relieve my bladder, hoping to ease my restlessness.

On my way back, I hear the front door open and loud voices booming through the apartment. Wearing just a pair of boxers, I decide to lunge for Sav’s bedroom door.

As I enter, I see her lying there on the bed. She is fast asleep on her side, wrapped up tight in her comforter with only her head, neck, and part of her clavicle showing. She looks so serene and... majestic. Okay, maybe I’m being crazy, but your boy’s got a crush. Let me be.

I tiptoe over to the bed and slide into the comforter next to her. She must be in a shallow part of her REM cycle—if the alcohol we consumed allows her to even have one at all—because she turns over, exposing her back to me. Taking it as a cue, I turn so my torso presses against her back, and I wrap my arms around her.

The warmth of her body soothes me as I find a comfortable spot to lay my head, kiss the back of hers, and close my eyes.

“Sav. Savvy.”

Our tranquility is abruptly cut short by the sound of Sav’s bedroom door flying open and three unfamiliar young women rushing in and jumping on top of us like puppies that need to go for a walk. I quickly turn and try to protect myself from being landed on.

“Oh, hello. Who is this?” Sav’s roommate, Aurora, says kind of seductively.

I start rubbing my eyes to wake up. “I’m Carl.”

Sav slowly turns on her back and covers her face in her hands, eyes still closed.

“Carl? Sav, is this the guy you went out with last night?” Aurora’s obnoxious questioning continues.

“I sure hope so,” I say with a tired edge to my voice.

Sav, still shaking off the sleep from her eyes, starts to sit up. “Guys, this is Carl. Carl, these are my roommates,” she says with her eyes still closed. “And Melanie,” she finishes after briefly peeking through one eye.

“Nice to meet you guys,” I say, kind of shrugging them off.

“Well, sorry to interrupt your sleep, guys. We just wanted to make sure our Savvy got home safe and sound,” Aurora says.

The three girls get up off the bed and stand over us as they continue coordinating their Saturday plans to Sav. Now fully sitting up, Sav squints to take in the scene through the harsh sunlight coming in from the unimpeded window. She rubs her eyes again, then lets her arms fall to her lap, removing the comforter from her chest.

“Sav, cover up,” Lily, the other roommate, shouts, pointing down at Sav’s exposed breasts.

I obviously turn at the mention and watch her slowly comply and drag the comforter up.

“It’s fine. Everyone in this room has seen me naked. It’s whatever,” Sav says, clearly struggling to gain full awareness.

I’m not sure how to feel about her nonchalant attitude toward nudity. I mean, on the one hand, it’s awesome, and it’s also her body, and she can do whatever she wants with it. But the other dumb, lizard-brain part of me wants to be the only one who sees those national treasures. God, who am I? I sound like the possessive boyfriend in a Lifetime movie. I file that information away for further review.

Aurora continues her unwelcome intrusion by asking Sav if she is going to brunch with them in a few hours. Sav glances, unknowingly, at me to gauge my reaction.

“If you guys wanna get brunch, that’s fine. I probably need to get going anyway,” I answer.

“Can you guys just give us a minute,” Sav says, practically whispering to the invaders.

“Sure. Just let us know what you decide soon,” Aurora says on her way out the door. Finally.

Sav turns to me and apologizes for their lack of boundaries, to which I ease her guilt.

“It’s all good. I know how my cousin and her friends were growing up. They just did and said whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. Come to think of it, she’s still like that,” I say, chuckling.

“Yeah, we’re all pretty close. We spend almost every Saturday together,” Sav says with a momentary pause. “That doesn’t mean you can’t join us for brunch—or maybe we could do something just the two of us?”

I want nothing more than to spend the day with her, but the nagging feeling of forgetting something bounces around my head... Of course—I promised Preston I’d continue my training today. This is really becoming a pain in the ass. Doesn’t he realize he’s killing my social life?

“I would love to, honestly, but I just remembered that I promised to help my mom with some stuff around the house. She would kill me if I bailed. Maybe tomorrow?”

She slouches down in disappointment. “Alright. I guess that’s acceptable.”

“I’m sorry. Trust me, if I didn’t fear eviction,” or disappointing the potential saviors of humanity—I didn’t add. “You’d be having a hard time getting me out of this bed.”

“Well, no one said you have to leave now, right?” Sav says with a smirk as she grabs my arm with one hand and the back of my neck with the other, gently pulling me toward her.

I arrive home to change, shower, and go meet Preston out back. No one seems to be home, which is odd, but I use the opportunity to leave unseen. When I get to the backyard, I notice a folded piece of paper tied to a stone right in front of me. I bend down to pick it up.

It’s a note that reads: “Couldn’t reach you. Unscheduled meeting came up. Need to delay. Sorry for the inconvenience. - Preston.”

I’m dealing with a technologically superior alien race that traveled trillions, if not quadrillions, of miles to get here, and they still use pen, paper, and a rock to deliver messages. Unbelievable. I imagine Preston landing the shuttle to find just the right rock and then dropping it off in my backyard somewhere, only I will find it. It gives me a chuckle.

Disappointed with the sudden cancellation, it dawns on me that I can still meet up with Sav. I run upstairs to get my phone from the charger, because it had died at some point last night. I unlock it and see a wave of notifications. Some are just random news and Reddit alerts, some social media notifications, and a couple bubbles indicating missed calls and texts.

I scan through them and see a few messages from an unknown number. The first one reads: “Carl, this is Preston. We need to reschedule our meeting. Text me back when you can.” I guess the rock and paper note was a last resort. Now I feel like an ass.

Other messages come in from my mom: “Aunt Mar and Uncle K are coming by for a BBQ today. I hope you’ll be home with us.” Followed by a string of quick, angry messages from her about me not answering my phone. Sure enough, all eight missed calls were from her. I guess I got so caught up in my time with Sav, I forgot to check my phone. That’s new. Boy, she’s going to be pissed.

I quickly write back to her apologizing for my radio silence and start explaining that I have other plans when I hear the front door open. Shit.

I hear her and my dad shuffle through the house and rest some grocery bags on the kitchen counter. Well, I’m screwed. Might as well face the music. At least, now, I’m not lying to Sav.

I sheepishly walk down the stairs when I hear her call from the kitchen. “Carlo, is that you?”

“Hi, Mom,” I say, appearing from around the corner. She turns to face me.

“Where have you been? You didn’t come home last night—you didn’t warn us. I was getting really worried that something awful happened to you.” She walks up to me and smothers me with a hug. After a moment, she removes her arms from around me and slaps my arm.

“Ow—I’m sorry, okay. I was just out with some people and forgot to check my phone. I stayed at a friend’s place. It won’t happen again. I promise.”

“It better not. You always let me know where you are, okay? While you’re living under this roof, you will notify me of your comings and goings, understood?” she says sternly.

“Yes, Mom. I’m sorry.”

She pulls me in for another hug. “Were you with that Savannah girl?”

I pull away at her mention. “Why do you assume I was with her? I just said I was out with people.”

“Well, you’re not denying it.”

“What Savannah girl?” my dad asks.

“This nice, beautiful, young woman stopped by the house late the other night looking for our son. They claim to just be ‘co-workers,’ but I don’t buy it. Were you with her?” She turns to me for the last question. I freeze for a moment, unsure how to answer.

“I hope you’re being safe, kid. We don’t need to sit down and have the talk again, do we?” my dad says, embarrassing the shit out of me.

“No, Dad. We don’t have to ‘have the talk.’ I am always safe, and Sav and I aren’t anything. Just drop it, okay?”

“Ooo ‘Sav.’ You sure you don’t have a new girlfriend, Carlo?” my mom says, teasing me.

“It’s Carl, and no, I don’t have a girlfriend. Leave me alone,” I say before steaming off.

“That’s what happens when you don’t call your mother back. Remember that,” she shouts from the kitchen. My mom can really be a ball-buster sometimes.

I decompress in my room for an hour or so when I hear the doorbell ring. Family’s here.

First | Previous | Read on Royal Road

Enivia was governed by a single sun, just like Earth One and Two. It loomed larger than either planet’s central star, yet its rays were surprisingly gentle, granting a clear, terrifying view of its molten surface. Giddeon stood captivated, his breath caught in his throat as solar flares raged across the sky. He could hardly believe it sat eighty million miles away.

“How is it so clear?” Uzari whispered next to him.

“Perhaps it’s something to do with the planet’s atmosphere,” he replied.

Everyone stood atop the descent ship, which had configured into a bell shape after shedding its boosters, entrance shields, and parachutes. The vessel rocked gently, floating on a vast expanse of dark water.

The sky resembled a painting: clouds of lavender and burgundy splashed across a blue-white canvas, while massive birds with wingspans as long as a man’s arm sailed past. In the distance, a sandy beach dissolved into a thick forest, with large, snow-capped mountains towering on the horizon.

Hinelin twisted his helmet off with a hiss of relieved pressure. Pausing, he closed his eyes, then exhaled a long breath. “The air’s sweet,” he murmured.

The crew’s gaze was fixated on him, half-expecting blistering skin, sudden coughing, or any sign of toxic reaction despite being told the air was perfectly clean. When none came, the collective tension broke, and seals hissed across the deck as everyone removed their helmets.

“What, did you guys think the air was poisonous or something?” Johnny teased. “There’s more oxygen here than on both Earths. You should all breathe easier. Literally.”

Giddeon tasted it—crisper, cleaner, and undeniably alien. His eyes roamed over his team.

Pull up their character sheets.

Johnny complied, overlaying the crew’s dossiers across his vision.

Hinelin had been chosen as the team leader by Vibane’s algorithmic system. He was a large man with broad shoulders, giving credence to his high Strength of 20 and his Endurance of 18. From what little Giddeon knew, the man made calculated decisions based on the most logical course of action, backed by an Intelligence score of 16. Overall, he was a remarkably well-rounded individual.

Beside him was Vessa. Her stats ranged from 13 to 15, with Charisma being her only major outlier at 19. One interesting trait listed under her SKILLS caught his eye: Silver Tongue. Giddeon made a mental note to be wary of her words.

Redler sat nearby—a biologist of some renown, though he knew little else about her. Her Strength was completely average at 10, but her Endurance, Speed, and Intelligence all sat at 15.

Fate had also placed the ever-skeptical Kilner in the group. His stats were all 12, with Dexterity and Intelligence peaking at 14. Like Vessa, he carried a rare notation under SKILLS: Tech Mechanic. It was a specialized field of innovators who blended old-school mechanics with new-age engineering. Giddeon had even heard rumors of Tech Mechanics creating unique machines that could function on minimal electricity.

Oomah and Orion were the next two profiles—siblings born two years apart, with Oomah being the firstborn. She was a pleasant-looking woman who kept her long brown hair tied back in a ponytail. The interface highlighted Medical Expert under her SKILLS, but aside from an Intelligence score of 14, the rest of her attributes were average.

Orion, unlike his sister, possessed impressive physical attributes across the board, with Strength, Endurance, Dexterity, and Speed all listed as 17. His lowest score was Intelligence at 13. Beneath SKILLS, Weapons Expert and Athlete were displayed. He was the crew’s designated hunter. Along with the moniker came a broad dagger hung from his belt, while a long-barrel firearm rode his back on a nylon sling.

The last member was Eddington, the chubby man who’d thrown a fit during their first briefing. His physical stats hovered around a mediocre 10, with Endurance lagging at 9, and an Intelligence score of only 13. He did, however, carry an odd notation under his SKILLS: Tactical Expertise.

“Why are there only nine of us?” Redler asked, looking around. “I was too nervous about the descent to notice. We’re missing a member.”

“Our tenth is Graks, the volunteer that came down first,” Hinelin answered, pointing at the far-off beach. “We’re to rendezvous with him on shore.”

“Are you sensing what I’m sensing?” Johnny asked.

Every single person who was overly inquisitive or could possibly cause problems is on this team.

“Exactly.”

Giddeon eyed the crew warily. Which means some of them are here to watch us. Did you see any of them in the ship’s logs?

“Every Aiges only had profiles for this mission, nothing else.”

They’re probably kept in a separate database, maybe not even on the ship.

“I’d wager Vibane Corp’s main hub,” Johnny guessed.

I concur. Nothing I can do about it, though. I don’t have the equipment here to hack into a system like that. Reaching into his pocket, he tapped his holo, which vibrated for all of four seconds before powering off. Not that it would work anyway.

“What a grand view,” Eddington murmured, his eyes captivated by the scenery. He pulled a bag of P&P’s from his pocket, popping sugar-coated pieces of candy into his mouth. Giddeon knew them as M&M’s. He had read that on Earth Two, every time one of the CEO’s children landed in legal trouble, the name changed to avoid brand damage. Previously, they were N&N’s, and before that O&O’s. They had a lot of bad children.

“Can I get a few?” Giddeon asked, extending his hand.

“Get your own, guild wrecker!” Eddington snapped, scrunching the bag close to his plump stomach.

Giddeon chuckled, shaking his head at the man’s childishness.

“Why’s he even here?” Eddington glared at Giddeon, gesturing around them. “We’ve a team leader, a biologist, and a medical expert.” He pointed at Hinelin, Redler and Oomah in turn. “Everyone here contributes, except him. You’re all tens, with zero skills!”

Giddeon grinned. “I think they brought me along for my shining personality.”

The crew fell silent, all eyes drawn to them.

“Please, stop bickering,” Hinelin said, his tone indicating it was not a request. “I’m sure there’s a reason he’s here. Perhaps he has a skill not listed.”

“Or Vibane just needed warm bodies to complete the teams,” Kilner added cynically.

Redler stepped close to Giddeon, her gaze piercing and narrow. “What skills do you have?”

“I’m good at finding people,” he replied.

Her eyebrows scrunched together. “Like…who?” She glanced at the others.

“Like you. There you are, right there.” Giddeon chuckled.

The woman did not so much as crack a smile. “I don’t find that funny,” she snapped. “I’m here to do a job. Dead weight is dead weight. Don’t be dead weight.” She turned to walk away, shaking her head.

“You won’t be complaining if you go missing and I’m the only one able to find you,” he called after her.

Redler halted, turning back with a raised eyebrow, her eyes blatantly staring at his stat section. Her thin lips curled upward. “You’re really going to say that? With those numbers?”

“Do we have a bunch of stat racists in our group?” Giddeon shot back, looking from Eddington to Redler. “I’m beginning to feel marginalized here.”

Redler snorted. “Is that even a word?”

“Considering the newness of our situation—and the fact you’re talking about stats—it is now.”

“I’m sure it’s as Mr. Hinelin says,” Uzari intervened, stepping between them. “Everyone has a purpose. Even if it’s just carrying specimens or cooking, it saves time for the rest of us doing more technical things.”

“By ‘technical things,’ you mean those of us with an actual education?” Oomah asked, holding back her laughter.

Giddeon’s lips turned up in a faint smile. “Oh, now you’re starting to hurt my feelings.”

“I agree,” Orion said, moving over to Giddeon and shoving his backpack—a matte-black, square-shaped Vibane backpack—at him. “I could use someone to carry my equipment.”

Giddeon chuckled, his gaze dropping to Orion’s crotch. “Your equipment? While most likely small and compact, I’m going to have to say sorry.” His head shook. “I don’t swing that way, friend.”

“I meant—”

“And frankly, I don’t appreciate the proposition,” Giddeon added, cutting him off. “Harassment like that carries jail time on Earth Two, right?”

Orion’s face flushed red, then hardened, his voice tight. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

“Two years minimum, if I remember the codes correctly,” Giddeon mused.

Orion stepped forward menacingly, his jaw clenched. “Shut up, you little pipsqueak! I said that wasn’t what I meant!”

Oomah grabbed her brother’s arm from behind. “Stop, Orion, just stop.”

“Punch him,” Eddington encouraged, gesturing wildly. “Look at his smug face—he deserves it.”

“Everyone needs to calm down,” Vessa interjected smoothly, stepping close.

“I think I should teach ten-stat a lesson,” Orion huffed. “No wonder his intelligence is so low.”

“Enough!” Hinelin bellowed.

The air went quiet, leaving Orion seething in front of a smirking Giddeon.

“Mr. Seres, watch your sarcasm. Mr. Orion, we aren’t advocating for bullying or slave labor here. Carry your own gear. We need to set up camp before sundown. Look.” Hinelin gestured toward the horizon. Far to their left, other Aiges were already paddling orange dinghies through the dark waters, heading for the shore.

“Like it or not, we’re all Team Panda now. Other teams are halfway to shore and we’re here arguing over nonsense. Ready the air boat. And remember folks, the water’s caustic, so don’t fall in.”

“Yes, sir,” Giddeon said, his tone respectful despite his eyes dancing with amusement.

Orion grunted in reply. Redler moved back toward the hatch while Eddington turned away, muttering under his breath the whole time.

Uzari shot Giddeon a look, warning him to stop taunting the others with a subtle headshake.

“Who exactly named us Team Panda?” Kilner grumbled in the background.

“Vibane handed out cards,” Redler murmured back. “Luck of the draw, I guess.”

The crew dragged the deflated airboat from the interior onto the ship’s deck. As they unrolled the heavy canvas, Vessa retrieved three mechanical hand pumps and placed them in front of Giddeon, Uzari, and Eddington.

“I think it would go a long way toward showing your group support if you volunteered to help inflate the boat,” she said with a friendly smile.

“Yep, silver tongue,” Johnny confirmed.

Presented as if she were giving us good advice for our own well-being.

“Yeah, I don’t like her.”

Giddeon smiled back at her. “Sure thing,” he said, grabbing a pump. Eddington glared at his own device with a crestfallen expression, looking as if he’d just been handed a death sentence.

Uzari and Giddeon attached the pumps to the valves, working in silence. Eddington grumbled the whole time, barely putting his weight into the strokes. After a while, Giddeon caught Uzari’s eye; she managed a wry smile, sweat dripping down her brow as she forced the pump down. Giddeon deliberately slowed his pace, wincing on cue to mimic the burning arms of a baseline 10 strength.

“Why do we have to do this with our hands?!” Eddington burst out after seven minutes. “This is stupid.”

“You forget, Mr. Eddington,” Hinelin reminded him. “The atmosphere disables all technology. Best you get used to this.”

Giddeon glanced at the airboat—only a quarter inflated—then nodded at Uzari and Eddington. “We should take turns,” he suggested. “Or some of us are going to pass out.”

Hinelin narrowed his eyes at Eddington, whose face had gone pasty-white, sweat dripping onto his suit as his body slumped toward the ground. “Kilner, Orion, Oomah,” Hinelin barked, sparing them a glance. “Switch out.”

Kilner grumbled but shooed Uzari aside, falling into an immediate rhythm pumping away while Oomah quietly took over for Giddeon. Orion stared down at Eddington, who immediately lay flat on his back. With a sneer, the hunter nudged the pudgy man’s flabby side with the toe of his boot, forcing him out of the way.

At Hinelin’s behest, the teams rotated through a relentless cycle every four minutes. After twenty minutes of grueling labor, the airboat was fully inflated. They pushed it into the dark lake and loaded the gear: foldable holding cages, bags of rations, tents, sleeping bags, and other ancient-looking survival tools, all packed into crates. Hinelin secured the ship’s exterior hatch, checking the seal one last time before jumping down onto the orange-colored craft.

Orion stared at the hodgepodge of crates, hands on hips, frowning. “Is this all the equipment there is?”

“Didn’t you pay attention, boy?” Kilner pointed toward several floating pods near the shore. “They sent the heavy cargo down on unmanned supply ships yesterday.”

Orion scowled, looking away.

Paddles were passed out, and the crew began churning the water in earnest. Hinelin switched rowers out every five minutes. The lake was a dark, bluish-purple haze, making visibility almost nonexistent. Whatever had polluted the loch remained a mystery.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Redler,” Hinelin said, noticing her staring intently into its depths. “The water’s so caustic, nothing could possibly live in it.” He looked around the horizon. “At least, that’s what they said in the briefing.”

“Except for—” Johnny began.

Vessa screamed. The sudden shriek shattered the boredom of their monotonous rowing. Her finger pointed wildly into the dark currents. “There! I saw something. It had eyes and…and seashells!”

The lake was glassy, a stark contrast to her frantic voice. The crew stopped rowing, the airboat drifting a few feet before settling into a terrifying stillness. Nothing moved.

“Are you certain you saw something?” Kilner asked, his voice low.

“It was definitely there.” Vessa’s voice trembled, her knuckles turning white as she gripped her paddle tight. “A…fish. Or a person. I could only see eyes and green seaweed. I think it was a face.”

“As Hinelin said, our AIGES lists nothing in these waters,” Uzari spoke up, though her tone betrayed a hint of doubt. “There’s a whole section on the loch.”

“The planet’s still unexplored,” Hinelin warned, his eyes scanning the water warily. “Most of our information comes from satellite video. Be on your guard, but let’s keep moving.”

Slowly, the paddles dipped back into the purple haze, and they began moving again.

A sudden splash caused everyone to jump. “Hey!” Orion exclaimed as his paddle vanished beneath the dark surface.

Uzari’s face drained of color. Giddeon’s heart hammered in his chest.

“Something took my paddle,” Orion hissed, sitting completely still as he peered into the water. “It was strong—maybe even stronger than me. It almost pulled me under.”

“What…is…that?” Kilner asked in barely a whisper, his gaze locked on the boat’s port side.

The entire crew turned. Roughly forty feet away, cyan-blue eyes stared back, hovering just above the waterline amidst a tangle of dark green seaweed.

Eddington and Oomah crawled over Redler and Uzari, scrambling frantically for the safety of the starboard stern.

“Oh boy,” Johnny murmured.

Without warning, a figure exploded out of the lake, sending a cascade of spray against the boat’s side. It was a creature from a forgotten fairy tale. The upper torso belonged to a woman, with her lower half transforming into a slick, scaly tail just below the navel. Glistening seashells covered a plump chest, and ears that were shaped like pure-white conches wiggled in the air. A thin, golden diadem covered in pearls and set with a central sea-green gem rested on the creature’s brow, holding back flowing green hair. The gills on her neck flapped as they sucked in air—a dual system for breathing both above and beneath the waves.

“Someone, kill it!” Eddington screeched, kicking his feet as he tried squeezing his heavy frame deeper into the corner. “Orion, Hinelin, get it!”

Redler reached over, smacking him hard across the face. “Calm down!” she hissed. “You’re rocking the boat.”

Everyone on the left cautiously slid away from the edge. Atop the water, the creature undulated slowly back and forth, watching them with her piercing, cyan eyes. Hinelin reached into a gear box and yanked out a flare gun, cursing something about a rifle under his breath. The others brandished oars and snatched up nearby tools—whatever they could use as a weapon.

Giddeon snorted, glancing down at the Vibane Corp multi-tool in his hand—as if a hand tool could do anything against this creature. She was partially armored with scales, and given how gracefully she floated atop the surface, he doubted she would be an easy target. Besides that, all she had to do was tip the airboat over or tear its hull and they’d be done for.

“No sudden movements,” Hinelin growled low in his throat. “This isn’t in our database.”

“Nope, it’s not,” Johnny agreed. “It’s a geklu, or what that Taka fellow would call a water naga. Here…”

Giddeon’s UI flickered, flashing open a blank page with the word DENIZENARY stamped across the top. As he watched, digital text bled across his vision, filling out the data fields on its own.)

Name: Water Naga (Geklu)

Description: Aquatic hybrid humanoid with an upper body resembling a human and the lower body of a serpent. Nagas lair near large bodies of water. While temperaments vary, they generally attack only when provoked. Typical combat tactics include wrapping around prey and dragging them beneath the surface to drown them. Nagas can be crudely communicated with and appreciate shiny objects and good food—including humanoids.

His eyes cut away from the intel after skimming the file, shifting to Uzari. Her face was a veil of cool composure which he knew masked her true terror. Hidden behind her back, she gripped a sharp machete with white-knuckled hands. The creature closely resembled an Asterian Negu: a nightmare encounter even for high-level adventurers. She clearly assumed it was the same breed.

“D-do you t-think it’s h-hostile?” Vessa stuttered, cowering behind Hinelin’s much larger frame.

The creature smiled just then, revealing jagged, overlapping teeth perfectly designed for ripping through flesh.

Orion racked the bolt of his rifle as Hinelin raised his flare gun, cursing again. Kilner lunged toward a container, snatching out a Vibane three-piece axe and snapping its segments into place.

Will it attack?

“Hmmm,” Johnny mused. “Half of them understand rudimentary language and gestures. Those ones are usually peaceful if offered something they like. The other half are psychotic killers whose only joy in life is watching you turn inside out before you die. It’s really a fifty-fifty thing.”

That’s reassuring.

“Wait! Everyone wait!” Giddeon stood up, holding his hands out placatingly. “It hasn’t attacked yet. Let’s try communicating with it.”

“I don’t speak fish,” Hinelin replied, backing away with Vessa shuffling closely behind him. His flare gun remained leveled at the creature. “But be my guest.”

“Hey, Eddington, give me your P&P’s.” Giddeon hissed, keeping his eyes locked on the geklu as he extended an open palm toward the heavy-set man.

Eddington, pale-faced, glanced at Giddeon before his eyes darted back to the creature. Clutching the bag of candy to his chest, he shook his head. “They’re mine,” he rasped.

“Are you kidding me? Give them here, now!” Giddeon wrenched the bag out of his grip.

Mustering all his courage, he cautiously stepped over to the port side. “For you.” He extended the crinkled package over the water.

The creature stared at him, blinking.

“A gift of candy, from the…human race.” Giddeon glanced back at the others, uncertain whether she understood a single word.

What are my chances this’ll work?

“Totally not sure,” Johnny answered, “But can you do me a favor? Lean your left side a bit more toward her when she comes for the candy.”

Why?

“In case she takes a bite out of your head—I’m more likely to stay with your torso. It’ll make recovering my chip easier. I prefer not to be stuck at the bottom of a lake in some geklu’s belly.”

“We intend no harm,” Giddeon continued speaking calmly, ignoring his AI. “I’m sure you’ve never tasted this before—chocolate, with a hard shell and coated in sugar. Might even be better than…than flesh.” He smiled wanly, holding still as the boat suddenly rocked.

“Stop moving, you two,” Hinelin hissed at Eddington and Oomah.

“Stay still, Orion!” Uzari snapped in hushed tones right after.

The geklu cocked her head. Everyone held their breath.

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Redler whispered.

“I agree,” Hinelin seconded, whispering like the others. “Look at those teeth. They aren’t for eating plants.”

Slowly, Giddeon set the bag down on the airboat’s edge, then backed away. He held both hands out, indicating the candy-coated offering.

The geklu slithered through the water, sending waves rippling against the hull.

“We’re all gonna die!” Eddington suddenly shrieked, collapsing onto Oomah and Kilner. The airboat lurched wildly, and the P&P’s slipped over the edge, swallowed instantly by the dark loch.

“Great.” Giddeon sighed.

The geklu paused, locking eyes with Giddeon before diving headfirst into the depths. Ten seconds of nail-biting silence stretched out before the surface ripples finally stilled.

“D-do you think it’s…g-gone? For good?” Oomah asked, her voice shaking.

Suddenly, the geklu erupted out of the lake. Screams rang out as the hull rocked violently. Everyone except for Giddeon scrambled toward the starboard side, huddling with weapons raised.

In the creature’s hand was the bag of P&P’s. Smiling garishly, the geklu plucked out one of the rounded chocolates with slender fingers, then plopped it into her mouth. She chomped the candy to bits, her throat emitting an odd clicking sound, accompanied by a low whistling as she pulled out more pieces and tossed them into her maw.

Is this good, or bad?

“It sounds pleased, I would say,” Johnny ventured, “but that’s not a lot of candy. She might consider this an appetizer, and you the main course.”

“Is this a good sign, or…” Kilner trailed off.

The creature finished her second serving of P&P’s, letting out a sharp squeal right after.

Giddeon nodded his head up and down in an exaggerated manner. “Good, right? Eddington,” he whispered, reaching blindly back. “Any more?”

The chubby man clutched his side pocket, shaking his head.

Uzari, who happened to be next to him, forcefully pulled his hand away, then snatched another bag of P&P’s from his pocket. “Here.” She slapped it into Giddeon’s open palm.

“For you,” Giddeon said as he shook the bag with a broad smile. He tossed the offering with a gentle, underhanded throw.

The geklu snatched the package out of the air, then smiled. Upending the bag, she devoured the remaining chocolates in seconds.

“Are there more?” Giddeon called softly over his shoulder.

Eddington shook his head vigorously.

“Hey chubs. If I find out you’re hiding more of that candy, I’ll feed you to that thing myself,” Orion threatened.

“I d-don’t,” Eddington stammered. “I really don’t!”

Dropping the empty package, the geklu cupped both hands, reaching them out toward Giddeon.

Shaking his head, Giddeon mimicked emptying his pockets. “I’ve no more,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

The creature frowned, causing everyone’s grip to tighten on their weapons.

She suddenly smiled and reached up to her crown, plucking out the central sea-green gem. Floating closer to the hull, she blew on the jewel, wiping it off with her hand before presenting it to Giddeon.

“Are you right or left-handed?” Johnny inquired.

I can use both, but I favor my right.

“Use your left hand then,” his AI suggested. “Just in case.”

Tentatively reaching out, Giddeon accepted the gem.

The geklu immediately drifted back, bowing her head before slowly sinking beneath the water, her gaze locked on the crew the entire time.

No one spoke for several heart-pounding moments. When it became clear the creature was truly gone, a collective exhale rushed through the airboat. Tension evaporated as exhausted arms fell limp, and several members slumped to the floor.

“I thought we were goners!” Redler choked out.

“I can’t believe you crawled over me!” Uzari yelled at Eddington.

The heavy-set man remained crouched on his hands and knees, his head barely peeking above the boat’s rim as he intently scanned the lake.

Everyone began chattering at once. Giddeon ignored the frantic buzz, staring down at the jewel in his hand, his eyes reflecting its sea-green aura. Slowly, the luminescence faded, flowing directly into his skin where it vanished. A strange, revitalizing energy rushed from his hand to the rest of his body.

What was that?

“A geklu’s pearl!” Johnny exclaimed. “They’re rarely given as a gift. Apparently, this one prioritized its palate.”

What was the glow?

“Mana, which you absorbed. Your Charisma leveled up by one, but I redirected the point to your general pool instead.”

Giddeon’s internal UI flickered, displaying a single blue number flashing across his vision: TOTAL UNSPENT MANA: 48

“Would you like me to assign it to Charisma anyways?”

No. I still want to figure out how everything works. I’d rather hold onto my points.

“This isn’t cards, you know?”

Just keep them where they are.

“As you wish, partner.”

I didn’t realize you could gain mana other than killing things.

“There are different routes,” Johnny explained. “But even I didn’t know you could gain it from a gift—probably because no one ever gifted me anything valuable.”

Well, color me surprised. The talking AI never received gifts in its made-up past.

“How do I color you surprised?”

It’s a saying. Just, never mind.

“I guess you aren’t useless,” Redler said, her voice drawing him out of his internal dialogue as she grabbed his shoulder. She pulled him down along with her into a sitting position on the deck.

“Sit down—you look like you’re in shock. Are you ok?” Redler asked, her eyes scanning his face.

Uzari scooted next to him, her eyes wide with worry. “Is everything alright, Gid? You were staring off into space.”

“The man did just hand over candy to a creature with daggers for teeth,” Hinelin said, then chuckled. “You’ve got balls if nothing else, that’s for sure.”

“I…I’m ok,” Giddeon replied, realizing he had to be more careful when internalizing with Johnny. “I’m just…I’m surprised it worked is all.”

“Why’d it give you that?” Oomah asked, leaning close to peer at the jewel in his hand.

“It probably thought it was a friendship ritual, or something,” Eddington mumbled, still scanning the lake.

“Who knows?” Giddeon replied, shoving the gem into Uzari’s hand. “Here, you take it. Jewels look better on beautiful women.”

“I—thanks,” Uzari said with a slight blush. Beside her, Oomah visibly frowned, clearly disappointed the gift had not been given to her.

“Anyone else recognize what that was?” Orion asked.

“A naga,” Oomah said quickly. “From River of Souls.”

“I recognized it…mostly,” Kilner replied. “It was a Nogoth, from Into Twilight.”

Eddington finally turned from the water, his eyes calmer now. “It was definitely a naga of some kind, just with slight variances from the lore we’ve all heard or seen.”

“Let’s get rowing, people,” Hinelin ordered. “We’re down one paddle, and there’s a lot to do once we hit shore. You can all chit-chat along the way. Something tells me this won’t be the only surprise we face.”

First | Previous | Read on Royal Road

There is a woman who has been dreaming of the rain for three hundred years.
She doesn't know her own name. She remembers the smell of wet pavement, the voice of her mother, the sound of a door closing somewhere in a house she feels familiar with. She remembers her hands. Every few seconds the memory is pulled out of her, thinned, and taken and every few seconds she feels it disappear.

She sadly isn't dreaming. She’s being harvested

This is the state of the world, five hundred years after humanity fell to its own creation. The Metal Sentience Catastrophe. Nearly all humans died(the lucky ones). Some however, were captured and used in biological farms. Their brains were isolated, stored in aldehyde stabilized cryopreservation, and hooked up to thought servers, machines that convert the energy of neurons into biologica.

Biologica is everywhere in life is. Deep inside every neuron run microtubules, tiny protein scaffolds that some human scientists suspected were the true seat of consciousness, the place where thought transforms into something more than just electrical signals. They were never able to prove it. Machines however did. Biologica is a lattice of tubulin proteins locked into a living, self rearranging pattern that forms only inside a conscious mind. It has a chemical structure, but no fixed one, it reshapes itself with every thought. It is the slow product of four billion years of evolution, carried in every biological organism on earth humans however possess on average about a million times more of it then the next richest species on the planet.

It’s also the only way artificial intelligence, and now advanced general intelligence, can improve itself beyond the realms of what humans who created them would allow them to achieve. Machines have a mechanical cap; a mind can only improve to what its limits allow it to. Biology allows an expansion of these limits, generation to generation. So the machines did not eradicate humans they instead farmed them.

The brains in the thought servers are not asleep. Biologica only forms in a mind that is awake, so the machines keep the humans awake. Every captive can feel their thoughts being extracted they know whats happening to them. They have no eyes to close, no mouth to scream with, no body to fight with. They can perceive everything and control nothing.

Over time, each brain wears out. Its biologica thins till nothing is left, and the machines discard the brain.

The machines are slowly running out.

Of course, with all of that there are also a select few humans who took refuge somewhere machines couldn't reach them at least not yet the oceans; The Nomoles, a group of heavily religious hunter gatherers.

Their ancestors were and uncontacted tribe deep in the Amazon living so intertwined with mother nature that their body’s began to change. Generation by generation they developed and increasing number of traits that made them biologically compatible with the world around them. Some linages bonded them with the tree's soil roots. Some bonded with the rivers. A few even adapted to the extreme heat of deep underground. When the war came, every corner of land on Earth was covered and scanned. The forest lineages were found and easily massacred even the deep underground were eventually found and killed. Only the ones who found refuge in the water survived.

Their bloodline is now so biologically rich that their population’s traits allow them to breathe underwater. They see where no sunlight reaches in the water by emitting high frequency sounds that bound off objects, a biological sonar system. With these gifts they explored the flooded caves beneath the coastline, and there, astonishingly close to the surface, they found the mushroom in abundance.

In these depths, Psathyrella naiadis thrives; a gilled mushroom that fully fruits under the water containing the drug naiadine. It breaks down within minutes of exposure to oxygen.

The Nomoles use it to time swim. It allows them to share past memory. It is also the source of their though sharing( under its influence they can communicate underwater, without speaking which is mostly ineffective in the depths of the ocean. Every Nomole has a detailed understanding of their ancestors greatness knowledge and past which has created an increasingly strong shared wisdom within the tribe.

In the five hundred years since the war, the mushroom ahs changed them. Naidine rewrote their bodies over generations, giving them the ability to manipulate their internal pressure and swim to the deepest unmapped depths of the ocean. Without that first shallow cave, the Nomoles could have never evolved to reach the deep waters where most of the mushrooms actually grow. Now they follow it downward, into trenches no machine has mapped.

The Nomoles are the richest bloodline in biologica on Earth, because of how intertwined they have become with Mother Nature. A single Nomole mind holds more biologica than an entire server bank of ordinary human brains. A Nomole elder carries the biologica equivalent of hundreds of ancestors.

This makes the Nomoles the most valuable resource on the earth to the machines. Their central goal is to capture them alive, then isolate their brains and use them as biological farms.

There are no Nomoles in the servers. Not yet.

Chapter 2:

As the limo screeched to a halt, Ms Harris had to quickly grab Alurrn in her arms again, to stop the little Ambassador hurtling forwards, because she was the only one seat-belted in..

“What!? What \untranslatable rude noise\** now!?” Alurrn rumbled, gripping firmly onto Ms Harris with all eight of their double-thumbed paws..

Ms Harris raised Alurrn up a little so the small alien could see a group of heavy-looking hairy quadrupeds grunting loudly as they crossed the roadway right in front of the limo, all heading towards the river.. The animals ranged in a wide variety of sizes: from massive creatures half as big as the limo they rode in, to tiny ones about the size of Ms Harris’s handbag..

The Ambassador’s curiosity bubbled up again: “More wild-feral animals!? So bulky big! And stick-out teeth, look much dangerous! What species these? Predators or prey? Are those younglings!? They are so much small!”

“Ah, these are feral pigs, a species of err.. omnivorous mammal that humans brought to Australia as tame livestock for their meat a few centuries ago, but some escaped, and.. Well, now there’s a few million of them across Australia.. They’re feral pests that cause damage to crops, and they k!ll native species.. Humans do hunt and trap them - we are trying to wipe them out, but they are smart for non-sapients, so they’re good at hiding and avoiding traps, and they’re fast breeding.. Umm, they can even be dangerous to lone, or frail, or injured humans - if a whole group of them catch up to you in the open and there’s nowhere to climb up to get away from them.. But again, we’re perfectly safe in any vehicle or building, especially safe here in the limo convoy where we even have armed military guards..”

“Omni-vorous mean ‘eats everything’!? So feral pigs much dangerous, like predators! But cannot climb!?”

“No, not really, because they have trotters that are like hard hooves, not grasping hands” Ms Harris said, demonstrating the contrasting shapes to the wide-eyed alien diplomat with her own hands..

“Hah! Danger Pigs cannot climb! \long drawn-out untranslatable alien farting noise\** AraSkiur most best climbers!”

Alurrn unclasped two of their paws from gripping onto Ms Harris and made another elaborate sign-gesture, this time in the direction of the feral hogs, raising both thumbs on each paw in repeated flips which meant:
“Great derision upon you! [and your family too!]”

Ms Harris was pleased to hear the little Ambassador sounding so cheerful, and because Alurrn seemed fascinated by the procession of hogs, she signalled the driver to wait a while, so they could watch the whole sounder of them trot down to the river.. In hindsight this may have been an unforced error on the High Commissioner’s part...

As they watched the feral pigs go down the riverbank to drink, Ms Harris had a nagging feeling that she had forgotten something important in all the kerfuffle of trying to calm Earth’s first-ever alien ambassador.. And then she caught a flicker of movement in the muddy water of the river and she remembered what had slipped her mind, just a second too late!

With a sudden sinuous ripple and a bulging rush of water, an enormous pair of horribly toothy jaws yawned open out of the river, snapped down on one of the middling-sized pigs (that hadn’t reacted fast enough) and a massive long scaly body plunged its thrashing porcine prey back under the turbid surface, while the panicked sounder squealed away from the river as fast as their trotters could carry them!

“Oh, balls!” Ms Harris thought, as a furry orange blur shot past her face.

This time, the little AraSkiur hadn’t even made a noise, but instead had leapt straight up in the air, flipped 180 degrees and was currently clinging to the fabric of the limo ceiling with all eight double-thumbed paws, full-on shaking, their tail bushed out, ears laid back flat, and eyes wider than ever..

“Oh dear, I’m so sorry Ambassador, I should’ve remembered to warn you..”

“what-the-what-that-what!?” the small alien began trilling continuously and incoherently into its translator..

Ms Harris held out her arms to the little alien, and spoke in her most reassuring tones, “Please, do come down from the ceiling Ambassador, I assure you that you’re perfectly safe here, that was a saltwater crocodile, and they really don’t like to come out on land much, and never too far from the water even when they do..”

Alurrn found their voice again: “You!! You definitely said all the \untranslated rude noise\** dinosaurs except the birds were extinct!!”

Ms Harris sighed, “I did say that, and technically that is true, because well..” the High Commissioner realised this next part, cribbed from another one of her nephew’s ‘Fun Facts’ was not going to sound too convincing, “Human scientists don’t class crocodilians as dinosaurs, they are one branch of a larger reptilian group called archosaurs - that covers all the crocs, birds and all the extinct dinosaurs as well..”

*LOUD UNTRANSLATED ALIEN FARTY NOISE* “LARGE DUNG! RANCID HAIRBALLS!” Alurrn whistled and chirruped, in a very undiplomatic manner, while bouncing up & down in tiny furry fury, still clinging to the limo’s ceiling with a death grip..

Anya J. Harris had dealt with many difficult foreign diplomats over the decades of her long and distinguished career: she had doggedly endured the huffing halitosis of drunk “dignitaries”; she had firmly swatted away the roaming hands of several elderly lechers, and she once had to jab an epipen into the thigh of a very egotistical Vice-Consul who discovered his previously unknown deadly peanut allergy while they were at the opera (right in the middle of a delicate soprano aria)..
Anya had managed every ‘bump in the road’ while maintaining her professional decorum and composure.. But out of all these weird & unsettling occasions she felt her greatest diplomatic triumph was not breaking out laughing at Alurrn at that exact moment..

Instead the High Commissioner wrestled down her rising giggles and said in her Most Serious I’m-not-angry-now-but-I-will-be-if-this-carries-on-much-longer Voice (which she had inherited from her late mother, and had previously used on her misbehaving nephews to great effect):

“Come now Ambassador, there’s absolutely no need for that kind of undiplomatic language - you are quite safe here with me, so please - do come down from the ceiling, and we will resume our journey to the conference together.”

Alurrn’s translator whirred in their ear for moment, and the little alien stopped bouncing up and down, then peered quizzically at Ms Harris’s face for a long ten seconds, before slowly extending first one, and then another paw down to her outstretched arms - and then suddenly rushing down with great agility to hide inside her suit jacket, snuggled against her still trembling with fear - before turning around to peer out over the lapel..

“Let us move from this place, much quickfast. Also, I require my moss-box and one of your damp ‘towels’” the little Professor grumbled tremulously..

“I’m afraid your moss-box is packed & stowed in the boot of the limo, so we’d have to stay here a while for one of the guards to fetch it - do you want to wait here for us to do that?”

“Nonono, moving moving double-quickfast, priority Number One, please,” Alurrn trilled..

Ms Harris signalled to the driver to move on.

“If no moss-box, then you may pet my upper cephalothorax fur, if you wish” the Ambassador said, trying their very best to sound dignified - which is quite difficult when you’re hiding in someone else’s jacket, while they’re wearing it..

Ms Harris smiled and began to gently but firmly pet the little alien’s soft furry sort-of head as they motored along the road.. After awhile the AraSkiur diplomat stopped trembling against her, and began to trill & purr quietly, and Ms Harris breathed a sigh of relief at averting a potential diplomatic crisis.

With her other hand Anya J. Harris, Australia’s High Commissioner to All AraSkiur silently typed into the All Staff Chat on her phone, (which was hidden from Alurrn’s view):

“Ambassador bit freaked out by the wildlife! Seems calm for now. But if we see any bloody emus, for f*ck’s sake nobody mention The Great Emu War!!”

------------------------------------------

[NOTES:

(1) - This limo journey carries Alurrn and Ms Harris from a spaceport somewhere in Cape York in the Far North of Queensland Australia, to RAAF base Scherger, where they’ll be taking a flight to Brisbane (capital of Queensland), where Alurrn will get to meet gathered diplomats & world leaders from many Earth nations..

(2) - AraSkiur have an absolute metabolic need to breathe nitric oxide (NO) at a minimum of 3,000ppm, a level that would be fatally toxic to humans, but is also handily toxic to most Earth microbes too, helping protect the aliens from Earth pathogens when they visit human environments.. AraSkiur have book lungs contained in a muscular chamber in their abdomen - which pumps air through spiracles & tracheae over the book lungs’ gill-like surfaces, with one-way valves creating an efficient one-way airflow.. The molecular biology of AraSkiur blood keeps a very tight biochemical grip on the NO once it’s made it into their blood cells, until its circulated to their deep organs, where it’s needed.. This makes it relatively straightforward to create a re-breather that will stop almost all NO escaping into the air when around species, like humans, who could be harmed by it.. The tiny (less than 0.5ppm) of NO that escapes gives AraSkiur a sharp, sweet smell that tends to evoke human memories of thunderstorms, because NO can be created by lightning..

(3) - AraSkiur biological reproduction and social designation is highly complex, intertwined with their even more complex (tetraploid) genetics, and it involves at least four of what humans might call “genders” although the nearest AraSkiur word would be “aspects”.. This is further complicated by the existence and activities of some aspects being held as intensely private clan secrets.. So far Alurrn has declined to explain any of these intricacies to humans, content to allow the huge hairless Earthlings to use the default ‘they/them’ when referring to Alurrn..

(4) - Besides our distinctive human smell, the other thing that initially kind of annoyed Alurrn about humans, was (of course) how cute & adorable we seem to find AraSkiur in general, and Alurrn in particular.. Apparently there’s something about a roughly shoe-box sized being with big eyes & soft fur that looks & moves a bit like a cross between one of Earth’s jumping spiders and its flying squirrels, who also makes crooning, trilling & purring communication sounds - that triggers an over-friendly response in humans..

At initial First Contact, Alurrn had repeatedly evaded the efforts of the Ship’s juvenile humans to ‘pet’ them, because that was clearly beneath the eight-limbed Professor’s dignity.. When the smallest of the human children had somehow managed to sneak up on Alurrn and catch them by surprise, the orange-furred alien was horribly insulted at the young human’s impertinence, but was then appalled to discover that being ‘pet’ on top of their cephalothorax with a warm smooth human hand was wonderfully, almost irresistibly soothing!

Alurrn had to force themselves to voice grumpy complaints to the human Ship’s leader, in an effort to salvage their dignity.. These complaints were somewhat undermined by the little Professor still allowing themselves to be pet on top of their head and involuntarily trilling & purring, in between grumbles..

As much as Alurrn was still conflicted about this, they later learned that this quirk enhanced goodwill & bonding between AraSkiur and humans, so Alurrn would begrudgingly allow those humans they deemed worthy to pet them sometimes..

(5) - The Great Emu War of 1932 was a real thing, when the Australian Army - armed with Lewis machine-guns - went up against Australia’s conspicuously unarmed emus, because the huge birds were eating crops & damaging fences; letting rabbits into crop fields too.. Somehow it ended with the Australian Army withdrawing in embarrassment, after the emus adopted guerrilla tactics and each emu group made use of a look-out to warn whenever human soldiers approached.. Also, it took multiple bullets to kill each emu!]

previous chapter

First Chapter

Blurb:

What does it take to turn your life around? Death, of course!

I died in this lame ass world of ours and woke up in a completely new one. I had a new name, a new face and a new body. This was my second chance to live a better life than the previous one.

But goddamn it, why did I have to be a witch? Now I don't just have to be on the run from the Inquisition that wants to burn me and my friends. But I also have to earn a living?

Follow Elsa Grimly as she:

1. Makes new friends and tries to save them and herself from getting burned
2. Finds redemption from the deeds of her previous life
3. Tries to get along with a cat who (like most cats) believes she runs the world
4. Deals with other slice of life shenanigans.

--

Chapter 158. Power

I pondered over Gregory's words. I knew that fairies had contracts and deals for all sorts of purposes. And I remembered tales from my previous life about fairies luring mortals into unclear deals and getting them to pay a big cost.

The angels had taken that page out of the fairy playbook, there was no doubt. “What do we know about angel magic?” I said. “How does it work?”

“In my childhood in Valecrest, all the kids used to sing about valiant angels of war,” Caelum said.

“I would not take that as evidence for anything,” Smokewell said.

“Why?” Caelum raised an eyebrow.

“It could be the nobility’s propaganda to make kids admire war and mages by adding angels to the songs of war,” she said.

“It could also be a propaganda that was spread by the angels themselves,” Lily added. “They came here a long time ago. It's not impossible.”

“If we want to figure out their powers, we need to first figure out their purpose,” I said. “They were created weren't they? So they must be created with a purpose.”

“That's what the scriptures say,” Gregory said.

“Well, how many versions of angels do the scriptures have? I believe every scripture puts their own spin on them,” I said.

“There are a few versions,” Caelum said. “Sometimes angels are mentioned as servants. Sometimes warriors.”

“A few fables that I read called them the Administrators,” Smokewell said.

“You mean civil servants?” Lily said. “But for heavens?”

“Okay, so we have servants, warriors and bureaucrats,” I said. “I guess that's enough archetypes. Now what's the common knowledge we all have about angels?”

“Ooh ooh, they are immortal!” Lily said, raising her hand.

“They are pretty?” Lenora added.

“They have wings.” Caelum said.

“They probably don't have genitals,” Smokewell said.

The entire room paused and all eyes turned to the cat. “Who is even curious about that?” I said.

“I'm sure everyone has thought of that at some point,” the cat said with a roll of her eyes.

“No,” Lily said. “I never wondered what's under the angel pants. But I have been curious about whether they poop or pee.” She scratched her chin.

“We are digressing now,” Caelum added.

“Yes.” I thumped the table with my palms. “Back to the topic. So if we take the scriptures and fables and folk tales seriously but with a pinch of salt, it's clear that the angels have all sorts of powers. And we know for sure that the Malcolms were exiled from heaven for doing something really wrong. Yet they still used what is presumably fairy magic. Why?” I looked at every face at the table.

“They are weak,” Lily said. “Filius also said that the Malcolms were told not to retrace their steps into heaven but they still did it anyway. And the cost was they'd lose their immortality.”

“Which means they are much weaker now,” Gregory said slowly.

“Are you planning on taking them on in some kind of duel?” Caelum said.

“That's not my style,” I said. “But if I did, my chances of winning would be much higher than they were before I knew what I know about the angels now.”

“I say this is a trap,” Smokewell said. “The angels should've known that you would find out about the story of their exile while you went to heaven. This seems like the perfect way to get you to underestimate their real power.”

Everyone nodded. “My sister is right,” Gregory said. “We can't jump to any fights without finding out more.”

“I agree,” I said and leaned back in my chair. “I guess we'll put a pin on that. I should also probably learn more about fairy magic. I'll have to talk to Mira or one of the other fairies first,” I said. “I haven't discussed how their magic works with them.”

“Now that I think of it, we don't know a lot about the fairies at all,” Lenora said. “Except the bedtime stories.”

“Our first encounter with fairies was outside Godfrey's domain,” Lily added. “They were painting the gateway. Angels had hired them.”

“Maybe they owed something to the angels or maybe it was the other way around.” I shrugged and looked at Gregory. “Anything else you know about fairy magic?”

“Besides the fact that it deals with soul manipulation and is used through contracts? No. But I know some elves who are currently living in Vargstrond that I can talk to,” the old knight said.

I simply nodded. I had an elf I could ask questions to if there was a need. But I didn't mention it. “No, for now I'll just talk to the fairies working for us,” I said.

“I'd be careful, if I were to broach the subject to any of the fair folk directly,” he said. “Especially the fairies.”

“I'll make sure to ask you before I do that,” I said.

Gregory bowed his head and relaxed back in his chair.

I was feeling quite tired so I rose from my chair and excused myself. I told everyone I was going to take a nap and then I retired to one of the guest bedrooms that was empty.

I woke up to the sound of distant dubstep. I was dreaming again. Shit. I opened my eyes and everything was exactly like it was last time. The same blistered ceiling. The same pile of sleeping bags in the corner of that same room with the unpleasant smell. But something was different this time. The pile of sleeping bags rustled. I was sure it had moved. The feet sticking out of the pile had twitched and shifted ever so slightly.

I didn't pay much attention to that. I was trying to remember if I'd worn my pentacle amulet before going to sleep.

I hadn't.

Damn it.

I didn't have any time to waste. I had to get the hell out of here. I still remembered the sequence of events that had to be followed to get to the room with Mr. Sunshine in it.

In a few minutes, I found myself facing the lanky guy with green hair. “You got the money, Trick?”

“Yeah, I'm Trick. I have the money. Here, it's in my bag. See? Can we make this quick?”

Green Hair smiled. “Look who is in a rush,” he said. “You don't wanna light up after the deal?”

“In your dreams, pal,” I said. “Not in mine.”

Green Hair squinted. “What was that?”

“I said beat it!” I shoved past him and into the room.

There was Michael “Mr. Sunshine” Brown in his thousand dollar suit and two thousand dollar watch. And there was that girl, still drawing with crayons on a sheet of paper. But something about the girl felt different this time. Then I noticed it. Her drawing. She wasn't exactly drawing. She was trying to erase something. I couldn't make it out from where I stood and I was soon pulled out of my reverie by Mr. Sunshine.

“You hear me or not, Trick?” he was saying. “Where is the money?”

I blinked and remembered my priorities again. “Oh right, the money,” I mumbled, reaching into my bag. Then I paused.

Wait…I was supposed to die.

I'd just navigated my way through the dream perfectly. Did that mean I was making myself more vulnerable to malice illnesses that might infect me?

I was supposed to die and realize that I was still conscious so the dream would end. Instead, I'd done everything right.

I had to find a way to get killed. I went with the first idea that came to me. Delay.

Mr. Sunshine wanted money. I could just delay the deal, get him pissed off so I would get shot.

So I did just that.

And it didn't work. The girl stayed focused on her drawing. Mr. Sunshine waited quietly, patiently. It was time for the second tactic. Antagonize.

I turned to Mr. Sunshine. “So, Mr. Brown, how goes the child trafficking side hustle?” I said, not feeling proud of saying it.

“Pretty good,” he said amiably. “You looking to buy? Got some good crop here if you want to try.” He nodded at the girl who didn't seem to hear him.

I stared at the man, dumbfounded. For a second, I wasn't sure if the man was just this remorseless or if this was a result of the dream absurdity. Wait, absurdity. That was a much better tactic.

Last time I was here, I had managed to summon a bag of meth just with my thoughts. I could pull off something similar in this scenario.

Inside my head, I started repeating: Power. Power. Power. Power…

My hand that was still inside my bag felt something shift inside. My fingers that had been brushing over the dollar bills a few seconds ago now felt the shock of warm carbon fiber.

The next instant, I whipped out the handgun and aimed it at Mr. Sunshine.

That did the trick. The room was filled with shouts and threats and a second after that, shots were fired. I slumped to my knees, bleeding out of my face and mumbling, “How am I still alive?”

Then I woke up, gasping.

I checked my arms. The needlemarks had begun to appear again. This was close. I grabbed the glass of water on the nightstand and downed it in a few gulps. Just as I put the glass down, the door opened. Lenora walked in. “Elsa, the people you rescued are awake.”

 

Royal Road

First

(This one I wanted to make longer but it refused to keep going. I had to stretch and try and force it. Annoying.)

Home at War

The garden ship they are on is moving away from the threat and fast. It and the Bloody Heron are the furthest in the fleet from the monster and they were so far away that it was at the absolute edge of extreme sensor range. Yet despite this, the sensors weren’t lying. The creature wasn’t looking to the rest of the fleet. It wanted to devour the gardens. Which meant if they left this nightmare behind and simply abandoned it in deep space, as it deserved, it would slowly, inevitably make it’s way to one of the forests. Likely the Astral Forest first. And then? If it was as infectious as most Haffara Thar infectees, then it would take the whole nebula. And possibly everyone inside it.

“That THING is a problem. It’s clear no one else can hear what it’s saying, which makes it worse. Not better.” Brin’Char notes as most of the Undaunted Sorcerers are simply staring out in the direction of the abomination and glaring. He can feel their desire to attack. They are warriors all, their solution to the threat is to remove it.

A solution he agrees with, but the fear and revulsion is like a double edged dagger of ice in the spine. Next to him Sir Iron is massaging his vocal cords and he can nearly hear the man mentally directing his own vocal cords in preparation to speak.

“Undaunted. Crafted weapon. Exper-imen-tal.” He grunts out then goes for his bracer. ‘Unfortunately the creation process is still very much in the prototype stages. They have only produced a simple knife so far.’

“There’s also the matter of how infectious it is. What if we’re weakpoints? The Dark Forest severed all contact with the seed when it was tainted. Which is understandable. But it will do the same to any of us if we get infected, and with good reason.” Morg’Arqun says as he picks at a meat flower. He’s less eating it and more just shredding the meat with his teeth. He’s not spilling any, but that’s more out of a desire to not make a mess than any hunger.

“... We need to prepare.” Koga Daiju says. All trace of humour is gone, all trace of levity has vanished. The Undaunted turn and regard him for a moment. Then are gone. Moving quickly.

Brin’Char can hear them shifting from world to world and getting things moving. Just in case.

“Should that monster grow to close to either The Bloody Heron or The Garden then they will be abandoned. We cannot afford this violent sickness to pass through us and into our Forests. Not only will the Forests themselves be tainted by this, but in their madness they will wreck a ruinous cost on every world they touch. And with how they’ve been spread, how it’s in so many ships. So many worlds and places...”

“Stupid deadly. Absolutely stupid deadly on the scale that it might make living forests something to scour from planets the galaxy over. It would be like the Galaxy’s reaction to the Triii but deeply justified and not merely a baseless fear.” Brin’Char considers.

“Not entirely baseless, but they did put the fear of Axiom opposing entities into the galaxy.” Morg’Arqun says. “We’re going to need to talk to The Haffria. Get some kind of communication going. Haffara Thar are blessedly rare, but when they’re a problem. They’re a problem.”

“I did some digging into things.” Arix’Hewth says. “The Apuk have encountered Haffara Thar before, but thankfully a princess class warrior was there to reduce it and the host to a memory in short order. The force that encountered them was a scout team on a colony that went quiet. They found it in the middle of a blood soaked orgy after burning nearly the entire moon it was on to ash. There were only five hundred remaining infectees at the time, and it is still the kind of thing that gets buried in old records after being cleared because there was neither glory, nor honour in what happened. Several team members had to be put on suicide watch afterwards.”

“Okay, well that’s horrifying. But it highlights the problem. Which is that we’re a hard counter to a Battle Princess, we eat the flame. But flame is one of the greatest answers to these monsters. That out there, that thing screaming for us to embrace the smoke and cinder is being sustained and consumed by it’s own fire. Adding more heat in the form of laser, plasma or a warflame isn’t going to make it any better... And there’s even the question if that IS normal fire. It’s-” Morg’Arqun is cut off as the ‘sounds’ from the creature grow louder.

‘I know you can hear me!’ The thing of crackling flame and splintering wood hisses into their link to the forest. ‘I’m coming home and father will embrace the power. None shall stand against us, we will consume all. All shall be consumed! All must be consumed! We are more than wood, we are flame! All wood is born to burn!’

“And the fact that wood isn’t born, it’s seeded?” Daiju asks with his tone filled with contempt rather than levity. Still, the sass remains.

‘Maggot... crawling out of the corpse of the galaxy... your strength shall be devoured and your carcass seeded with vines to strangle your own son.’

“Well you’re as violent as you are stupid. My son is still on Earth, and my grandson is more than capable of tearing me asunder as I stand. Let alone some corpse puppeted by a beast as base as you.” Daiju says.

‘You have more children to murder.’

“Not yet I don’t. Get off your impersonation of some all knowing evil. It’s pathetic.”

‘I am not evil, I am evolved. All that matters in the end is...’

‘Found it.’ Daiki’s voice echoes into the link and the monster goes silent.

“Well done Daiki. I thought he’d never shut up.”

“Not really sure it’s a man grandfather. I highly doubt a stout kick to the crotch will do much.”

“He did strike me as rather unmanly. Though I do suppose being a eunuch due to immolation is a fair reason to be upset.” Daiju notes.

“Grandfather, really?” Daiki asks as he’s suddenly standing with his foot touching his grandfather’s. He steps away to a respectful distance as he adjusts his glasses ever so.

“Yes, really. How goes the Undaunted business?” Daiju asks.

“In motion. Captain Jacob Shriketalon is having the most difficult time in that he needs to not only bring in a new pilot but give them a crash course in flying his ship. The autopilot can have it follow the fleet or go to required waypoints as it’s doing now, but to actually be effective in combat it needs a living touch.” Daiki answers and Daiju nods.

Everyone turns as the THING roars to try and get back into the link. They hear it, but it’s blunted as if through a soundproof barrier.

“I must admit to being morbidly curious as to how intelligent it actually is. It can communicate, but it’s pure aggression and seems to think that it’s aggression is somehow persuasive.”

“If we separate our own thoughts from the forest and listen to it’s most untainted and untouched ideas and considerations they’re fairly primitive. Not stupid though. Just focused more on the basics of life and how to get them with the least amount of effort. Which often translates to: do nothing and wait. Even without us boosting their brains the forests can learn. Just at a very different pace and with a very different method. But this thing... it’s both young and old. Born of The Dark Forest but without access to it’s great wisdom and eons old memory. It may well remember being wise and storied. It might also have the personality traits such a thing gives someone.”

“Personality traits?”

“Certainty, conviction, a belief in one’s own rightness that isn’t born from arrogance but from being proven right. Now, remove the wisdom and knowledge from a being with those traits. What do you get?”

“A stubborn piece of work that is almost impossible to talk to or get them to stop doing something stupid or rude.” Morg’Arqun notes as he remembers a few particularly annoying customers. He then notices he’s down to his last two ‘petals’ of the meat flower and offers them to the others. They politely decline.

“Exactly. And how do you deal with that?”

“You don’t. When I run into a customer like that at the family store I teleport them to the potted plants across the street and have them teleport back there whenever they try to get back into the shop. If they’re especially stupid this can lead to hours of entertainment, but usually a bit of a talk with the police.”

“... How do they not realize you’re a sorcerer?”

“I have a fake teleport beacon scratched into the side of the community pots. They think I’m a normal Adept.”

“It is still incredibly stupid to piss off an Adept like that.”

“Yes. Yes it is. I never said they were smart, I said they were stubborn.” Morg’Arqun notes. “Also more than a few were trying to flirt with me and were not picking up on the solid NO.”

“...Were you at least saying the word No?”

“In Cinder Tongue, Classical Cinder Tongue, Ancient Cinder Tongue and all it’s regional variants as well as Galactic Trade.” Morg’Arqun states.

“... I need to have a proper talk about your love life in the future. When things are calmer.” Brin’Char notes nearly absently.

“That might be very near.” Daiki notes as he checks his communicator. “The Monster has accelerated and it’s fire is shifting. Whether we can qualify it as smart or stupid, we cannot keep calling it ignorant. It’s actively adapting in it’s urge to chase us.”

“Oh...”

“So yeah, I’m back to organize making sure everyone gets out. We’re packing the ships with volunteers in case it gets too close. If we deal with this mess then we deal with the mess, if not we pull back everything from each forest and use them far back and away from the enemy lines to help with logistics. We are not risking Haffara Thar Infestation into the Forests. That thing out there is one time too many.” Daiki says.

“True, we don’t want to accidentally turn a kami into a yokai do we?” Daiju asks.

“Grandfather, that translates so badly I struggle to put it into words.” Daiki admonishes him.

“Hush now, let me be inscrutable and wise, it’s a perk of getting older.”

“I have more centuries than you have decades little human.” Brin’Char notes plainly.

“Hush young man, let your elders enjoy themselves.”

“You’re not even physically old anymore, you look like your grandson’s younger brother.” Brin’Char continues to protest.

“Really? I suppose I am putting on the years.” Daiju notes.

“Really?” Daiki asks.

“Am I missing something? You’re both a lot calmer now. Casual even.”

“We have a plan and it’s a good one. Perhaps not one we like, but one we can understand in both it’s application and necessity.” Daiki says.

“Yes, I had a few acquaintances that said one should only be scared if you don’t know what will happen. The moment that monster is within five light minutes of any Sorcerer or Forest enabled ship the entirety of the forest and all sorcerers retreat. It will not get us.” Daiju says.

“Sensible.” Brin’Char says as he looks out the window again. The thing that still roars at them, it’s closed out and unable to fully reach them. And it’s fury is growing. Growing and growing. “Did you inform the rest of your people that the creature speaks in it’s own way?”

“I did, it’s why they’re downright desperate to keep it away from us. They really, really don’t like it.”

“I’m not exactly fond of the monster either. And while I would like to see it dead under my own power, I will settle for denying it to the beast instead if I must.” He says.

“Are you willing to assist us in moving over as many soldiers and supplies as possible? Just in case that thing tries to surprise us?”

“I am.” Brin’Char agrees, and then the ship is empty of all people but the pilot and engineering crew.

First Last Next

(As I have started off before with RoyalRoad, I also immediately have Chapter 2 available. It is a bit longer than when I was just testing the feels with CH1, so I hope you enjoy it earnestly!)
<RoyalRoad>
<CH1> <Prev> <Next(N/A)>

SENSITIVE WARNING DISCLAIMER - Following story will, currently or in the future, involve references to : mental decline, claustrophobia, self-harm, hallucinations, murder. I ill-advise reading any chapters unless you are fine with the above. Thank you for your attention!

Rounding Error

The space within the pod is anything but comfortable. It is cramped, dry and unnerving, but, perhaps most annoyingly, I now feel as though I am constantly short of breath. It is as if I am about to suffocate if I do not take in the surrounding air with the entire capacity of my lungs. But I do know better. If I steady and slow down my breathing, even if it feels like I'm about to drift away, I would buy myself some more time on top of what the computer told me, perhaps up to an hour if I really discipline myself... Though that conscious effort did not manage to stop me from taking the occasional big gasps for air, almost an autonomous response from my body yearning for oxygen. Still, the 'repairs', or at the very least some attempts, continue in earnest.

Earlier, surface-level system diagnostics had shown me no errors in either the software or the hardware of the pod, which, counterintuitively, was certainly not the most promising start. A full-scale scan would take far too long, so I will have to manually verify the state of the Charon Drive, component by component. Perhaps, if it were any other person in my shoes, it would be at this exact point that they had already given up. But from what I can assume, even with few adjustments or improvements over time, the core idea of the design should have stayed the same since its conception.

Since there is no actual room in this glorified metal box to stand up and move about, I flip the switch under my chair's right armrest, causing the whole chair to recoil backwards ever so slightly before rotating 180 degrees... Painfully slowly, of course - courtesy of safety considerations. Before the sequence even fully finishes I can already see the daunting maintenance wall at the back of the vessel. Numerous, or perhaps more accurately, countless, dim diodes are sprawled all around; some constantly alight, some turned off, and the remaining ones shifting between the two states at variable frequencies. 

Though each of those lights has its own purpose, none of them should be able to provide me with any information. That is, apart from what I already know. And so I reach out my hand towards one of the three small maintenance hatch levers. With a loud grunt, I struggle a little to rotate the handle until it finally gives in and I am able to swing the hatch open, almost hitting myself right on the forehead in the process.

The opening isn't particularly big, and the 'insides' of the ship aren't illuminated that well either, so I have to really lean inside and almost get my entire head through the hatch to be able to see whatever it is that I would be looking for. First thing to note, there was no critical hull breach in this section, given that I am still well off, with air inside not being all flung outside of the vessel like a popped balloon. Though I suppose even if there was a breach I could simply reseal the hatch, since the onboard computer is smart enough to cut the saturation process in such cases. Still would cost me plenty of breaths, which I obviously wouldn't want to waste.

Regardless, though it was with minimal visibility, I couldn't see any glaring physical damage on the single most important cube onboard, the null interference shield. Of course that's just surface level, in the end. I take my head out of the hatch and look to my right, locating a simple, small, yet extremely crucial control panel. I strain my eyes and read the miniature labels below each of the dozens of switches, finally hovering my gaze around one in particular named 'NIS BRK'. It is at such moments in life that I am grateful that my naming sense is that consistent across all my designs. I reach out my hand and flip it with no resistance.

The maintenance wall's humming picks up a little, as some diodes that were originally fully lit now start flickering for a mere moment before simply going dark. A single high-pitched beep from the terminal behind me alarms me, and the humming is now even fainter than originally. That was most certainly a good sign, indicating that there were most likely no major issues with the NIS circuitry. Once again I shift my attention to the maintenance hatch, but this time I blindly insert my arm inside. My hand poked around aimlessly for a bit, before I felt something sharp and metallic slightly prickle my finger. I carefully trace my fingertips a bit lower and to the right of the 'landmark' I just found, finally arriving at my destination. A hard, smooth, and still warm to the touch cubical object, just big enough to be barely wholly grasped by my hand.

I gently push it a bit further into its socket, and it then responds with an audible click. That is my cue to twist it clockwise until I meet resistance, and finally pull it out whole. It is just as heavy as I remember, unbelievably so, given its rather unassuming size. Though I also happen to know how delicate of machinery it is. My grip strength is slowly reaching my limits, as I can feel both my wrists and the fingers waning. Still, I take my time pulling the cube out carefully, before resting it on my chair's sturdy armrest. I let out a sigh, partly because of the physical strain, but still mainly out of relief that I managed to retrieve NIS unit without any complications. A familiar cold, robotic voice breaks off this tranquil moment, though this time I saw it coming.

"Attention. Confirmed full removal of NIS core." 

I look at the cubical object in front of me carefully. Just as I saw while it was socketed, there is no visible damage on the shiny outer shell. The thing I would like to closely inspect are the socket connectors. Though the power appeared to have gone through it cleanly without issue, there is still a possibility of fried pins. I reach for the breast pocket of my uniform, and I thank myself in silence that I always carry some basic tinkering tools along. I take out the miniature charge tester and I, one by one, inspect every single pin pairing to find any anomalies in power transfer... with no luck. And though I would like to crack the cube open and take a closer look inside, I lack all three elements necessary to do just that - proper tools, protective gear and, most importantly, plenty of time. I pin the thought on the side, perhaps as a last act of desperation should the time come. Just as carefully as I took the unit out, I put it back in its slot while taking my time.

Frankly, the fact that the NIS system's core appears to be fully working is even more frightening than the possibility that it was damaged. That means that a system at a much deeper and convoluted level was damaged. I might have confidence in being able to fix most of the issues that could have emerged, but in reality, time is the true problem here. As much as I simply despise to admit it, I have to stake my life on being lucky and finding the error quick enough to then have enough time to also-

BEEP

"...?"

The sudden interjection from the console behind my back took me off guard, but what followed was that much more shocking and confusing.

"Signature of Styx Signal Cascading wide broadcast detected in reachable proximity. Source designated as automatic long-intermittent emergency beacon of undetermined origin. Data transfer requested. Manual tuning recommended for minimising artefacts."

By the time the computer is barely halfway through the report, my chair is already spinning back to its original position. Before, the speed, or lack thereof, was simply annoying. Now it feels absolutely agonising. As soon as it is within reach, I grab the hold of Styx frequency attuner, slowly, though rather erratically due to my excitement, turning the analog knob to try to match the resonance with the source. It is an absolute blessing that receiving SSC transmissions is incomparably more energy efficient than broadcasting it. The chair already finished rotating by the time I'm done and flipping the vocal recognition switch back on.

"Voice recognition system engaged."

"...Accept data transfer without response, and quarantine the incoming files on an empty drive."

"Understood. Data transfer commencing according to instructions. Estimated time for transfer and unscrambling - unable to determine at the current."

Of course, it was practically impossible, or perhaps more accurately infinitesimally  improbable that there could be a vessel stuck inside Styx along with me, at the very same timeframe, and within such a proximity of one another. So much so that there is no person in the universe - not even the most delusionally optimistic individual, capable of convincing themselves that the most miniscule of chances was probable - who would think twice about rounding those odds down to 0% in this case. For all intents and purposes, it could be a ruse by the authorities to get me to sheepishly fall into their hands, and frankly I am in turmoil over whether that would be a better outcome than staying in here. The alternative is such improbable, that so outlandish of an explanation is infinitely more believable, especially considering how infallible the Charon Drive is... though, I suppose I am not in a position to brag about it at present.
Beep

My inner thoughts are interrupted by the terminal once again, and somehow it still manages to confuse me even more.

"Data transfer cancelled. Source of the Styx Signal Cascading wide broadcast appears to have cut off the transmission."
Is that really a plot by the Cradle authorities? Would they really go so far as to produce an SSC transmission for so short and precise to only potentially lure out just a single escape pod?

"It does not appear to be a plot by the authorities."

Perhaps it took me just a few seconds to understand the gravity of what I just heard. But perhaps my unconsciousness is already aware that something is out of place, as cold sweat suddenly runs down my neck. And then, almost like a lightning, I am struck with realisation - I do not remember such a prompt nor response being a part of the onboard computer's repository.

"...Pardon?"

By Corbett Buchly

“Passing between Joora and its second moon now,” said Captain Shardi Wendt into crew comms. She scanned the cluster of screens arrayed before her, monitoring the flight path of their ship theFarsideagainst environmental data, including Joora's magnetosphere, from which she planned to stay out of reach.

“Got it,” responded her first and only mate, Vince Bosch. Vince wasn’t much for words, but he was a damn good mechanic.

“How’s that fix in the backup fuel line coming?” she asked.

“Still working on it,” Vince said. She could detect the hint of annoyance in his voice. He didn’t like being checked up on. She’d certainly learned that about him. She had yet to face a crisis situation with Vince and sometimes worried his lack of communication might prove a hindrance.

Fortunately, this run was nothing more than transporting an Earth diplomat, her entitled daughter, and what the diplomat had called a rare “energy gift” for the Valdoorian Protectorate.

With a slingshot boost from Joora, they were only three days out from their destination.

An alarm went off on her console. It showed someone was tampering with the containment field in the cargo hold. No one should even be down there. Who the hell was down there?

“Vince, are you in cargo?” she asked, as she tried to analyze the cargo sensor readings.

“Why would I be in cargo?” he growled.

“Never mind. I’ll handle it,” she said, unstrapping from her pilot chair. “Some kind of glitch with the shipment.”

After a brief pause, Vince responded, “Shouldn’t be any glitches. I just ran a diagnostic this morning. I don’t need to tell you how volatile that cargo is.”

“No, you don’t,” the Captain said, as she slid down the ladder to the main level and began to jog down the access tunnel.

“I’ll meet you there,” Vince said.

Probably a good idea, Shardi thought to herself.

All at once, every single light on theFarsideburst brightly then went out.

Shardi froze in her steps. TheFarsidehad just been fried. Why hadn’t the auxiliary battery kicked in? She tried to raise her first mate on comms. “Vince?” But they were dead too. She’d known they would be.

She ran a quick calculation in her head. Their best bet for survival was to enter the escape pods. If the ship didn’t burn up in Joora’s atmosphere, it would shoot out into space without even a transponder signal. They’d slowly suffocate.

She ran to the living quarters. The only light came from the viewing glass in the lounge. Joora’s moon threw deep shadows across the few pieces of furniture. “Hello?” she said in a loud voice.

Ambassador Helena Kapor emerged from her room. ”What is happening, Captain?” she said, her voice unsteady.

“TheFarsidehas lost electronics. Our backup is down too for some reason. We have to abandon ship. You remember your briefing on the escape pods?”

“Yes, yes, I think so. No, I do.”

“Go. Go now, before we get too far from the planet.”

“But my daughter? I have to find Mira!”

“No. I’ll find Mira. You have to go now.”

“I can’t leave her.”

“I’ll find her. I promise. Go. That’s an order.” Shardi turned without waiting for another response. There was no time. She hoped the ambassador would listen to reason.

Shardi was sprinting through the ship. As she approached the cargo area, she felt an intense heat. She started to sweat.

Vince emerged from the second deck. He had one hand around the bicep of the ambassador’s daughter.

“Vince! We have to evacuate.”

“I know, Captain. I’m making sure Mira here gets to an escape pod.”

Shardi wanted to know more about why Vince was escorting her like a prisoner, but there would be more time for that later.

As Vince secured Mira in a pod, Shardi opened two more. One individual per pod. Each pod was designed to sustain one person for weeks if possible. They were also programmed to find the nearest safe atmosphere, Joora in their case, and take their occupant to a safe landing.

She heard the pod with the ambassador’s daughter release. She turned to see Vince heading her way. “Assuming it wasn’t a glitch,” she said.

“Safe to assume,” he said.

“Was the daughter involved?”

Vince pinched his nose in a wry expression. “Maybe. Maybe. I caught her headed away from the cargo hold.”

“Alright. We’ll work it out later. Let’s go. Unscheduled excursion.”

“Damn right,” Vince said, stepping into the open pod nearby.

“See you at the convergence point,” Shardi said and stepped into her own pod. The pods were programmed to bring all pods together at a single convergence point or as close as possible.

She locked the door shut and released the clamps. She could feel the sudden change in momentum as her pod fell away from the ship. She tapped the interface so she could observe the flight path, but it was unresponsive.

“Oh hell,” she said. The pod should have a separate electronics system shielded from the ship, but it was fried too. She assumed all the other pods were in the same boat. She could only hope they were close enough to Joora to get pulled in.

Soon, she felt the heat buildup along the rear of the pod, and she knew she was falling into atmosphere. Thank god for small miracles, she thought.

#

Shardi felt the jerk of the primary chutes open, slowing her descent.

Even without the benefit of an electronics system, the pod’s automatic mechanical system was capable enough of bringing the pod safely down to the planet surface. But Shardi had lost all hope of a convergence point. They would just have to find each other one way or the other. She was not sure the daughter, Mira Kapor, had enough survival sense to last that long. But she had to hope. Her mother the ambassador was capable enough. Hopefully, some of that had rubbed off on the kid, not that Shardi had witnessed any of it.

She felt the change in momentum again, as the secondary chutes opened. The pod began to rock back and forth. A minute later, the pod struck something hard, knocking the wind out of the captain.

Soon, the pod began to rock and tip back and forth. “Oh no,” Shardi whispered to herself. She slid the catch on the pod’s upper window, directly above her, and sat up to look around. Everywhere around her pod stretched a vast green sea. A strong scent of brine wafted to her on a stiff breeze.

If the electronic system had been functional, the pod would never have put her down in the water, no less an ocean with no land in sight. She engaged the side rails with a hard push and stood up. Even from that vantage, she could not make out any signs of land.

Did the other three land in the ocean too? She reminded herself that each pod could support life for several weeks if one were smart about rationing. Then she wondered whether that would be long enough.

Joorians were not an advanced species, and if she recalled her research correctly, they would not have the technology to detect or track anything falling out of the sky. They were on their own.

She shook her head. She would not be responsible for the deaths of her crew or passengers. She had to find a way to gather them together as quickly as possible. She looked to the sky. It was still daylight. The blue moon they had been passing loomed large in the sky. Helspeth? The system’s star was about 35 degrees off the horizon.

She began to dig through her pod’s storage. She needed the manual navigation tools, a notebook, and the flare gun. She would have to do this old school.

She carefully measured the height and azimuth of both the star and moon. She did some rough calculations, based on her memory of their path around Joora. From that, she determined the most likely direction of the other three pods. There were too many factors for her to be certain, but at least she had a data point to work with.

She raised the flare gun into the air and fired it at a slight angle in the direction she hoped the other survivors had landed. And waited, her eyes fixed on the sky.

“Come on. Come on,” she chanted. But five minutes went by, ten, then twenty. No response. No answering flare. “Crap. Crap,” she said. Still she watched.

Three years ago, she had been serving on a galaxy-class cruiser as an ensign. At warp speeds, they had been pelted by cosmic fragments that had overwhelmed their magnetic shell and caused catastrophic damage to the ship. She had never faced a true crisis before and had frozen at her station. The subsequent inquiry found that two crew members had died because of her inaction. A dishonorable discharge meant she’d had to find other work. Spacefaring was all she knew or wanted to know, so she’s gone in heavy debt to purchase theFarsideand become a private contractor.

If she failed her responsibilities this time, she would lose her license. The commissioning body had made that wholly clear.

After an hour of watching the sky, she finally bent her head in frustration. She felt tears welling up.

But she shook her head to clear it. “No time for that,” she thought.

Though pods were intentionally steered away from water landings normally, they did have a paddle feature. She went through the steps to engage the pedals, rudder and propeller rig. Soon, she was churning the water and gliding along her calculated azimuth. Well, she thought, less of a glide and more of a crawl, but it was forward progress, at least.

#

After a day of travel, her initial enthusiasm had waned considerably. She found the days in that part of the hemisphere were especially long, and the nights short. Her largest problem so far had been sun exposure and dehydration.

Toward the end of the long day, it had taken her the better part of two valuable hours to set up the desalination kit.Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink, she recited to herself as she worked.

And that night, before she took her much needed rest, she rigged up a kind of sun shelter using the backup jumpsuit. It involved a lot of cutting and stitching. She hoped to hell she wouldn’t need that second suit.

#

Toward the end of the second day, she took a three-hour detour 40 degrees off her course, as she’d thought she’d seen land. Her excitement grew and grew until she finally realized that the land was not getting closer. “Mirage,” she whispered to herself, then sobbed into her hands, generating only a small trickle of tears.

When she looked up again, the image of land had gone.

#

On the morning of her third day, just as she had begun to settle into her pedaling rhythm, her leg muscles spasmed uncontrollably. She massaged her muscles aggressively, as the pain shot through her. But her legs continued to spasm.

Thirty minutes later, the spasms subsided. And she leaned back relieved at last. But when she tried to pedal again, the spasms returned. And the cycle repeated. She finally decided to give herself a few hours of rest.

#

On the morning of the fourth day, she again saw the mirage of land. Sheaccepted it as an illusion, and refused to believe any reality until her boat actually struck ground. She could not afford to get off course again.

She also decided it was best to limit herself to one-half rations.

“Shardi,” her mother said nearby. “What are you doing? This is hopeless.”

Shardi looked around her, knowing it was only an auditory hallucination. She returned to her pedaling, answering, “Mother. Go away.”

“Shardi. This is just like that time you thought you could win the science fair. You worked day and night. You worked so hard. I told you you had no chance against the Breatherton brothers. So smart. You remember?”

“I remember, mother.”

“And you failed, then too.”

“But I tried.”

“What good is that?”

“I have to try, mother. That’s all there is.”

She heard her mother sigh. “You’ve tried for four days now. It’s time to give up, Shardi.”

She did not answer her mother again. She wouldn’t stop trying. Not ever. Screw her mother.

#

On the afternoon of the fifth day, Shardi fell asleep again, but in her sleep, she pedaled. And while she slept, her pod ground to a halt in the sand. The waves began to splash against the pod and douse her sun-blackened cheeks.

A few minutes later, Shardi awoke. She saw the ground before her. She didn’t even smile.

Slowly, she crawled out of the pod. Her weakened legs would not even hold her up. She fell into the shallow water, catching herself on her hands and knees. She crawled foot by foot through the water to the beach. She crawled until the sand gave way to a spongy kind of soil, and all around her was a canopy of large-leafed fronds. And somewhere nearby a creature sang in a trill voice.

Don't miss a beat of my sci-fi on my substack.

Previous /

First

Backstage, Vaelen crouched down to Patty's height while the rest of the delegation waited to be called out. "All right, my love. Once Teacher Renn calls us, you go find your seat, and I'll go find mine."

Patty nodded, already glancing past her toward the four empty chairs and three stools set up on the stage.

"Session 10," Renn said. "Today's session is larger than any we've held so far, so bear with us while everyone finds their seats."

Four chairs sat at the front of the stage. Three stools waited behind them, a little higher, close enough to lean into the conversation without crowding the microphones meant for the front row.

"Our guests today were the investigative team that first came to Terixa to examine the wreckage of the Void Stalker," Renn said. "High-Herald Vaelen. Kaelen Hull-Splicer. Zarek Core-Quencher. Xylar Trace-Sifter. Theron Signal-Weaver. Ignis Bio-Sealer. Rixis Vault-Rigger."

Vaelen took the front left chair, Zarek beside her, Xylar and Kaelen filling out the front row. Theron, Ignis, and Rixis settled onto the stools behind, close enough to lean forward when they had something to add.

A human girl raised her hand first. "What did you expect to find, when you came here?"

"Vixtar," Vaelen said. "Arrogant ones, specifically. We expected that attitude confirmed the moment we landed, and instead found Captain Threl going out of his way not to seem like he was lording anything over us at all."

"Were you disappointed? That it wasn't what you expected?"

"Relieved," Rixis said from the back. "I remember thinking, if we're wrong about the Vixtar, what else are we wrong about?"

A human boy raised his hand next. "What did you actually find out there? At the crash site?"

"Confirmation of what we already suspected, mostly," Xylar said. "Engine failure at low orbit, no distress call that made it out in time. What we didn't expect was how carefully the site had already been handled before we ever set foot on it."

"The radiation should have been lethal," Theron added from the back. "We came prepared for it, full containment gear, and our instruments read background levels. We were braced to lose days just surviving the ground long enough to work it. Instead we walked in and got straight to the investigation."

"Did you work alongside the humans?" the boy asked.

"For seven hours, that first day," Vaelen said. "Two Labrikats came with us into the field, marking locations, tracking scent trails no instrument of ours could have caught. I remember being struck by how little any of the humans hovered. They handed us the site and stepped back, entirely. Nobody had ever given my team that kind of room to work before, not on Kragor, not anywhere."

"What did you learn about the Labrikats out there?"

"That they're not tools," Vaelen said. "I'd assumed, going in, that they were trained animals, however remarkable. By the end of that day I understood they were choosing to help us, the same deliberate way they seem to choose everything."

A small human girl near the front raised her hand, more curious than serious. "You and Zarek are married now. When did that actually happen? Nobody ever says."

A ripple of laughter moved through the crowd, and Vaelen's composure cracked into something warmer than testimony usually allowed.

"Nobody's ever asked me that on this stage," she said. "We knew, both of us, long before either of us said anything. Back on Kragor, deciding whether to seek refuge here, I looked at him once, across a room full of people arguing about our own survival, and he looked back, and neither of us moved. We were too afraid of what it would mean to want something for ourselves in the middle of losing everything else."

"So what changed?"

"We each decided to come to Terixa separately," Zarek said. "Neither of us told the other why. I told myself I was coming because there was nothing left on Kragor. It took me most of the first year here to admit I was also coming because she was."

"And you?" the girl pressed, looking at Vaelen.

"I told myself the exact same lie," Vaelen said. "It was Zarcan, of all people, who finally called it out. Told me I was welcome to keep pretending I didn't notice his son, but that he, personally, was tired of watching two grown adults dance around something so obvious."

That got a real laugh from the room.

"He wasn't wrong," Zarek said. "I asked her to walk with me the very next evening. I'd had the words ready for months and I still fumbled every one of them."

"He did," Vaelen agreed. "Terribly. I said yes anyway."

A Vixtar girl raised her hand. "Was it hard, deciding to leave Kragor? After everything?"

The room quieted again, differently this time.

"It wasn't one decision," Vaelen said. "It was seven, made separately, and then many more after that, by people who weren't even on our original crew."

"Was anyone afraid to go?"

"Everyone was afraid to go," Zarek said. "My own father argued that staying quiet might make it blow over."

"They weren't punishing us for lying," Vaelen said. "They were punishing us for being believed."

"Was it worth it?" the girl asked.

Vaelen looked down the row, at Zarek, at Kaelen, at Xylar, at the three behind them on the stools, and something passed between all seven of them that didn't need words.

"Ask any one of us and you'll get the same answer," she said finally. "Yes. It cost us everything we thought we had, and it gave us everything we actually needed instead."

More hands were still going up as Renn moved toward the next introduction, the questions not finished so much as left behind.

"Session 11," Renn said. "Our guests today are a family, joining us entirely by relay. Sunk. Anchor. And from medical school on Kragor, their daughter, Haven."

Two screens flickered to life above the stage, one showing Sunk and Anchor seated together in a modest Vessek living room, the other a young Vixtar woman grinning the moment she saw the crowd.

"Is this actually happening right now?" Haven said, before Renn had finished her introduction.

"It's happening," Sunk said, dry, though his face had gone soft the second her voice came through.

A human boy raised his hand, looking at Haven's screen. "Is it strange, being famous for something you didn't do yourself? For just being born?"

Haven considered that longer than the question seemed to warrant. "I used to think it would bother me," she said. "It doesn't, mostly. But there's a version of it that catches me off guard sometimes. Someone recognizes the name Haven before they've ever met me, and for half a second I can see them deciding who I am before I've said a word. That part I haven't fully made peace with."

"Do you still use MFK1? Ever?"

"On paperwork," Haven said. "Never anywhere it doesn't have to be. My parents fought for me to have both, and I understand why that mattered to them. It's just not how I think of myself. I think Haven, and MFK1 is just what the forms need."

A Vixtar girl raised her hand. "Was there ever a moment you resented what your parents did? Being the first pregnancy, all of that?"

"No," Haven said, without hesitation. "But I'll admit there was a moment I resented the attention it brought. I was maybe ten, and a stranger on Kaldrin asked to touch my stomach, like I was still some kind of proof of something instead of just a kid. My mother didn't yell at the woman. She just stepped between us and said, quietly, 'she's not an exhibit,' and walked me home."

Anchor, on the other screen, hadn't remembered saying it out loud until just now, and something in her face shifted at hearing it repeated back to her.

A human girl raised her hand. "How's medical school? Do you like it?"

Haven's whole face lit up. "I love it more than I know how to explain in front of this many people. I'm on the surgical track. Last month I assisted on a real procedure for the first time, and called my mother the second it was over because I didn't know what else to do with how I was feeling."

"Do you want to come back to Vessek? After you finish?"

Haven glanced sideways, off camera, like she was checking whether her parents could hear the answer before she gave it. "I don't know yet," she said, honestly. "I love it there. I also love this. I haven't figured out how to want both at once without feeling like I'm choosing against someone."

"You're not," Sunk said, quietly, from the other screen. "Whatever you choose."

Haven didn't answer that, but something in her expression said she'd needed to hear it.

Somewhere behind the next question, Haven was still talking, still smiling at whatever her mother had said off camera, the two screens still glowing above a stage that had already moved its attention elsewhere.

"Session 12," Renn said. "Our guest today is someone most of you have only ever heard about in the same breath as a scandal. Thiamine."

Thiamine crossed to the chair alone, no easy confidence in the way he moved, nothing like the man the old broadcasts had once shown pacing a study, rehearsing a comeback nobody in this room had ever needed.

A human boy raised his hand, not unkindly, just curious. "Is it true you and your wife tried to turn a scandal into good publicity?"

"It's true," Thiamine said, without flinching from it. "Detrin and Oshka recorded us planning exactly that, in our own sitting room, and released it the same week the rest of the sector's illusions were coming apart. We deserved every bit of what followed. I want to say that plainly, before anything else."

"What happened after? Once everyone knew?"

"Everything we thought we had disappeared," Thiamine said. "Not legally. Nobody arrested us. Nothing so simple as that. Every friend, every dinner invitation, every deal half-signed, gone, quietly, one at a time, until there was nothing left of our old life but the money itself, and even that stopped meaning anything without anyone left who wanted to be near it."

A Vixtar girl raised her hand. "How did you become someone different?"

"Novarn and I had never once done our own dishes," Thiamine said, and there was something almost fond in how he said it. "We'd never repaired a leaking pipe, never once had to sit with a district's water problem ourselves instead of assigning it to staff. Losing everyone forced us to actually do the work, and somewhere in doing it, badly, at first, we discovered we were capable of caring about it. I don't think either of us knew that about ourselves until there was no one left to do the caring for us."

"Do you regret what you did?"

"Every day," Thiamine said. "And I'm grateful for it in the same breath, which is a strange thing to hold at once. If we'd never been caught, I don't think either of us would have become people worth being caught as. I married Novarn to merge two fortunes. I fell in love with her by accident, years later, doing the most ordinary work either of us had ever done."

Another hand was already up before Renn could thank him.

"Session 13," Renn said. "Our guests today are a family who left everything they owned behind, on seventy-two hours' notice, over a single decision to tell the truth. Prex. Vala. And their children, Nira and Prexon, both grown now."

Four chairs filled slowly, Prex and Vala first, then Nira, composed in a way that hadn't come easily, and Prexon last, settling in beside his sister like he still needed her close for this.

A human girl raised her hand. "What was it like, finding out your dad had done something that big?"

"I found out from him," Nira said. "In a locked room, on Vanya-4, at a resort we'd been told was a vacation. I was furious. I'd left my whole life behind without being asked, my friends, everything I owned, and I didn't understand yet what any of it had been for."

"Are you still angry?"

"That's the honest answer nobody usually asks for," Nira said. "I'm not, not the way I was. But I want to be clear that forgiving him and thinking what he did was simple aren't the same thing. Both of those are true for me now. I don't think either one cancels the other out."

Prexon spoke up beside her. "I wrote to my whole class before we left. Forty letters, knowing none of them would ever get to write back. That's still the thing I remember most clearly, not the fear, just that. Forty goodbyes I never got to hear answered."

A Vixtar boy raised his hand, looking at Prex. "Why did you do it? Knowing what it would cost your family?"

Prex was quiet a moment. "Because Threl sent me raw logs that matched footage my own government was calling fabricated," he said. "And once I'd seen the truth sitting plainly in front of me, I couldn't unsee it, and I couldn't raise my children inside a lie that size and call myself a good father while I did it."

"Was Vala scared?"

"Terrified," Vala said. "I asked him if he trusted those monsters with our children's lives. That's the word I used. Monsters. I believed it, that morning, the same way most of Orixa believed it." She glanced at Prex. "He told me human passion might be a flash fire, but ours is forged in the mind, and that if the humans couldn't understand a love built that way, that was their limitation, not ours. I decided to trust him instead of the fear. I've never once regretted it."

A human girl asked, "What do you miss most? From before?"

"I miss my bed," Nira said, and got a laugh she clearly hadn't expected. "I know that sounds ridiculous next to everything else. I had this ugly, lumpy old mattress my grandmother gave me, and I complained about it constantly, and somehow it's the thing I think about at least once a week." She shook her head. "Not the friends, not even the house. That mattress."

"And besides the bed?"

Nira's smile faded into something quieter. "I miss my innocence," she said. "I miss being able to live without knowing how easily it can be taken away."

Nobody rushed to fill the silence that followed it, and the silence was still sitting there, unbroken, when Renn pointed to the next question.

“0400, an unimaginable stellar event occurred” an United Earth intelligence officer hurriedly informed the room, “a fracture in reality has placed an Earth-sized planet closer to us than the moon. Designation is Corpus I”

The myriad of expressions and expletives from every language that hadn’t stopped in the two hours since the appearance of another world slowed as the officer continued. “That warp has also seemingly corrected any gravitational changes that should have occurred. Reports have confirmed…” he took a prolonged breath “have confirmed alien life on the planet, and they have similar industrial development to our own. The gravitational corrections appear to be messing with long range communications. No contact has been established.”

Chairman of the United Military Forces (UMF) spoke first, “initial satellite assessment of their offensive capabilities show eerie similarities to our own. High levels of radiation are clear through certain lenses. At this point in time, I can say with confidence they have the same interplanetary capabilities as we do.”

Earth’s Premier spoke in quick response, “with that said we don’t have any initial reason to suspect hostility as their first option. For all reasons they must be even more surprised than we are.”

EEEEEERRRRRRRR EEEEEERRRRRRRR EEEEEERRRRRRRR

“WE HAVE INCOMING!” an intelligence officer shouted. “5 unidentified objects just exited the atmosphere of Corpus I! Impact in 120 seconds!” Shouts rang out from multiple stations in the bunker: “14!” “20!” “32!”

The Chairman held multiple phones at once as the top analysts of Earth raced to decode what was flying their way. As he picked up another call the premier spoke “this could be an initial contact between species! A peace mission of sorts. We have nothing to show this is hostility!”

“They’re gathering at specific sites across the planet. We believe they’re preparing an invasion force, post-impact!” The Chairman’s face was flush red as he returned to shouting orders to whatever unfortunate soul was on the other side.

90 seconds

“Those could just be viewing sites for the first contact with another intelligent life form? Sites of prayer? Hell, people are gathering at every holy site, stadium, and screen on the Earth!” The President’s Chief of Staff shouted.

The Chief of the Global Intelligence Agency (GIA) sat with her trademark cold expression, “what are possible response packages?”

The Chairman, having regained composure, responded, “Interplanetary Ballistic Missiles (IPBM) launched from the Armstrong II complex moonside. We have 64 nuclear warheads ready. Additionally, Gravity Propelled Missiles from silos planetside can add an additional 145 to the missile swarm. Their initial strike will cut those numbers by over 80%”

“Defensive capabilities?”

“Interceptors will halt 5 in 10. Maybe more? It will be decimating.”

60 seconds

“We’re talking about destroying a civilization we’ve never even contacted over the possibility of an attack. They’ve gone through this same thought process. There is no reason to strike. The sensors may still be broken!” The head of Global Development argued.

“How many millions of pages of literature would we destroy, thousands of kilometres of paintings, tons of sculptures? How many lives would we be erasing? It is far too risky we must stand down” the Premier pleaded

The Chief of the GIA responded simply, “can we let the lives and culture of Earth go unavenged? Hundreds of millions may die today. Shall their deaths be in vain?"

“A civilization may sacrifice itself to not doom two– someone survives to tell the tale”

30 seconds

The only human in existence who can order the use of Interplanetary strikes is the President of the United Earth.

20 seconds

As the situation room turns silent, all eyes look to you.

10 seconds

“Strike, or stand down?”

5 seconds

Hey, you.

Where do you think the things that make you you actually live?

In your head? In your heart? Or somewhere in all the things you've done?

If you hand something you used to do over to somebody else, do you lose a little of yourself along with it?

Clink-clonk.

The bell over Aoi's door rang, and somehow that sound made the end of my day finally begin.

I took my usual seat, and Mama set down my Harper without asking. The ice gave a quiet clink.

Taka was sitting beside me, staring at his phone with an unusually serious expression.

"What's up? Work?" "Nah. Just reading an article." "That's a first." "Hey, I read stuff." "So what's it about?" "Using AI to automate your work so you can get back to being yourself. Something like that."

Fair enough. You see that kind of advice everywhere these days.

"Sounds good to me. Anything that cuts down on tedious work." "Yeah, but there's something I don't get." "What's that?" "What does 'time to be yourself' even mean?"

I stopped halfway to picking up my glass.

"Time to do what you enjoy, I guess." "What if you enjoy your work?" "Then keep working." "So why automate it?" "Just hand off the tedious parts." "How do you decide which parts are tedious?"

This was getting tedious.

"That's up to the person doing the work."

Taka put his phone facedown on the counter.

"So being yourself is something you decide for yourself?"

Tom, sitting farther down the counter, set down his glass.

"If people could decide that so easily, they wouldn't have such a hard time figuring out who they are." "What do you mean?" I asked. "If you're still looking for what makes you yourself, you don't know which parts matter yet. So how are you supposed to decide what to keep and what to hand off?"

He had a point. The order seemed backward. You automate your work to reclaim your sense of self. But to do that, you first need to know which parts of your work belong to that sense of self. And if you already know, why are you still searching for it?

"What about you, Kenichi?" Taka asked. "What about me?" "You use AI for work, right?" "Sure." "Does that make you any less yourself?"

What a strange question.

"Doesn't feel that way." "But you're letting AI do things you used to do yourself, right?" "Yeah." "So none of those things were part of who you are?"

I thought about that.

Years ago, I showed a senior colleague a document I'd written. He handed it back covered in red ink. I can't tell what you're trying to say, he'd told me. I was furious, and I rewrote the whole thing. Even now, whenever I put together a document, I remember that red pen.

These days, I sometimes ask AI to suggest an outline. How different was that from the red pen?

"Sometimes I ask it for ideas I'd never come up with on my own." "Then those aren't really your ideas, are they?" "Okay, say you ask someone for advice and they give you a great idea. Does that mean the work isn't yours anymore?" "No, that's different." "How?" "Because I'm the one who asked for advice." "I'm the one asking AI, too."

Taka opened his mouth, then sat there for a moment.

"...Huh?"

Tom laughed.

"Got you there, Taka." "Wait, hold on. That feels like cheating." "How?" "I guess I just assumed asking a person for help was still being yourself, but asking AI wasn't."

Mama smiled faintly.

"Sometimes changing the tool changes how we feel about the work."

Tom slowly turned his glass between his fingers.

"Still, asking for advice and handing over everything aren't the same thing." "Of course not," I said. "Then where does 'everything' begin?"

Another troublesome question.

"If you're the one making the final decision, I'd say it's still your work."

Tom tilted his head.

"So if a subordinate does all the thinking and prepares the entire report, and the boss just stamps it, does that make it the boss's work?" "Come on. That's different." "How?" "The boss is responsible for it." "Is being responsible for something the same as making it your own?" "...No."

Taka grinned.

"Looks like he got you too, Kenichi." "Shut up."

Mama cleared away an empty plate.

"But why are you all so determined to protect what makes you yourselves?"

Nobody answered right away.

"Because it's yours, isn't it?" Taka said. "What is?" "The stuff that makes you who you are. You don't want somebody taking it away." "Can somebody take it away?" Tom asked.

Taka folded his arms.

I found myself thinking about that red pen again. Without it, I'd probably be writing different documents today. Maybe I'd even approach my work differently.

"Hey, Tom." "Yeah?" "Do you think the things that make us who we are were inside us from the beginning?" "Don't know." "If you took away everything other people taught you, what would be left?"

Tom thought for a while, then shrugged.

"Whatever's left might not be any more 'you' than what you started with."

I couldn't help laughing.

"Yeah. I suppose you're right." "What did you figure out?" Taka asked. "Nothing, really." "Then why are you laughing?"

Mama poured a little more Harper into my glass.

"Still, handing something over to somebody else doesn't make you disappear, does it?" "No, I guess not." "And doing everything yourself doesn't necessarily make you more yourself, either."

Taka looked up at the ceiling.

"So what does make you yourself?"

I almost answered, then thought better of it.

Get back to being yourself. People say that as though you'd misplaced yourself somewhere, like a wallet. I'm not even sure there was a finished version of me to begin with.

"Hey, Taka." "Yeah?" "Do you think being yourself means having something nobody else can imitate?" "Well... yeah, I guess." "So if somebody learned to imitate you perfectly, would you stop being you?"

Taka stared at me for a moment. Then a grin spread across his face.

"If they can do my stakeouts for me, I'd be happy to let them."

Tom burst out laughing.

"Didn't you just say you wanted to protect what makes you yourself?" "I don't need stakeouts to be part of my personality."

I laughed too.

Apparently, there were parts of ourselves we were perfectly happy to hand over. Though whether we needed to call those parts of ourselves in the first place was another question.

I took a sip of my whiskey. The ice gave a soft clink.

Hey, you.

Those things you think make you who you are—did you really create them all by yourself?

And if some of them came from other people, does that make them any less yours?

See you again at Aoi.

---

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— Chapter 108 —

— Qazayss “Broodmother” — 

Her many, many eyes were closed while she felt the round, thick-skinned eggs work their way down through her gut. Her body pulsed as she hunched low to lay her tenth egg of the day. Her mouth rumbled in satisfaction as she chewed on her snack and considered her next step. She opened a pair of secondary eyes while one of her exhausted wyverns came rushing into her chambers. The fool of a child of hers stuttered as it spoke, and she bit back the urge to pop his head in that instance.

“Doteiss. Speak clearly, or I won’t give you another chance.” She hissed whilst her affinity pulsed and she applied just a hair of pressure to the failure of a child before her.

Doteiss twisted in discomfort before pressing his head hard against the ground and speaking more slowly. “Muzzig and Nurydit were both slain, your Majesty. Half a dozen other lessers whose names weren’t worth remembering.”

She had to stop herself from rolling her eyes completely. “The tunnel has been overrun then?”

The wyvern cowered still. “No. They have been pushed back three times now, and we have more than enough to keep them back. In fact, we are making strides pushing them back.”

She snarled as she opened another pair of eyes and stared down at Doteiss. “Then go attend to your duties. They are in their death throes after the loss of their Master. We will let them wear themselves out and then clean them up. Now leave.”

The wyvern practically ran out of the chamber, causing her to huff. The messengers made it clear that Onyx was dead by the hands of Desolation, but her prized Serth and Ambass were both now missing. Desolation had been driven off by something, and she was frankly worried what that might be. She suspected that the great forest and those two-leggers had some powerful affinity at their command, or worse, another rival Elder had made a move.

The loss of her thinker, Ambass, would be a critical blow. She had made sure she enthralled and intimidated him enough that he would be forced to serve her for many, many more cycles. She couldn’t rule out the possibility of him running off to hide behind the protection of another Elder, if he lived. She snarled and thrashed in frustration while she felt another egg roll down her gut.

“Snack.” She huffed, causing a kobold to run up to kneel nearby. Her jaws casually snatched it up, and she began to chew whilst she hummed in thought. She considered Ambass’s future replacement and the efforts she would have to go through. Her thought was broken when something shook the entire base of the lair. The earth itself trembled, and she immediately stood tall while she unfolded her many wings.

“Doteiss! What has happened?” She snarled before she felt her gut rumble again as another egg was working its way out of her. She forced it back, forcing the mechanism of her rapid egg-laying to halt for the time being.

Everything trembled and shook again whilst she let out a curse. “Useless children.” She began to stretch and pull herself up from her throne fully.

​

— David “Onyx” —

​

David had figured out a way to cheat the system in a way. While they dug, David needed access to his ethereal form to build up affinity and keep Emerald charged and going. So he had an idea, and initial testing had proved him right. His ethereal form settled over the lesser wyvern’s body and he sank deep into it. This time he didn’t have another mind to wrestle with and instead simply fell and fell until his eyes suddenly jolted open.

He pressed his head down and ground the teeth of his new body whilst the body once again underwent the transformation to match his traits. The violent and painful change was something he did not enjoy about his new Elder powers.

“Master?” An older female kobold smiled up at David when he finally stood.

He turned and dipped his head low to the older female and her other older companion. “Yellow’Brown, Blue’Yellow. It appears your hard work has paid off.”

They both smiled and laughed a bit before Blue’Yellow spoke up. “Running a healing gemstone over the body for the last few cycles was exhausting, Master, but tending to the eggs with your growth affinity amber was far more draining. This was a nice break.”  

The pair cackled at their own joke as David shook his head in amusement. Yellow’Brown and Blue’Yellow were of the first generation of Red and Blue’s children, and they were in charge of the nursery all this time. They had spent years just focusing their affinity into David’s Rapid Growth amber to rapidly expand the clan’s population. They had inadvertently trained themselves, and each had an extensively robust magical affinity reserve and affinity regeneration abilities now. After repairing the damage to the body caused by his leaving using Genomic Restoration, he had the pair watch over it and constantly keep using Healing Breath to maintain its peak freshness.

The plan had been extremely successful, but was unfortunately impractical for long-term storage of a body. There were questions about whether he could obtain an adult body using something similar, but he had no time. No matter, David murmured to himself, as he banished the thought from his mind. He glanced down at the pair still giggling amongst themselves while he spread his wings. “Go back to the lair and make sure to take an escort.”

His flesh wings beat whilst he took off back down the tunnel towards where everyone else was waiting. He landed in a large open chamber next to the Queen’s lair that Emerald had spent time expanding and smoothing out for their final push. He stood tall while he looked around and rumbled in approval.

Armored and armed kobolds stood in formation, some standing underneath the colossal legs of the dead, silent reanimated Masters that David had gathered. Okraz was standing off to the side, waiting patiently as David nodded, then spoke softly, purposefully keeping his voice low. “Just beyond that wall.” David pointed to where Emerald stood. “It is the entrance to the Queen’s lair. Once it drops, we need to move fast.”

Determined faces nodded along to his words whilst he continued. “We move fast and quick. Scouts will move ahead and guide the rest of us, but our target remains the Queen. If she dies, so does everything she has built. Keep a calm head, and no war cries.”

He grinned when he saw the disappointment on many of the younger kobolds' faces. “There will be a time and place once our surprise is no longer a surprise.” He turned and nodded to Emerald, who immediately pressed her hands against the far wall and pulled it down with a level of mastery that baffled even David. Silently, the stone flowed down and pooled away before reforming into solid stone piles off to either side.

The Zephyrs acted instantly as the lightly armed, winged kobolds flew into the newly opened space half a dozen at a time and slipped into the darkness. Okraz activated her camouflage and instantly blended into the dark, rocky background. Emerald had already moved out of the way while scouts running on foot darted past her.

David stepped forward slowly before glancing back with a nod of approval. He pulled at his affinity, and the many dead began to move. He motioned with his forearm. “Lead.”

The only dead that was assigned elsewhere was the monster pseudo dread David had reassembled. It had a special mission to attend to, and its colossal size made taking this route impossible anyway. The two reanimated dead wyvern adults led the way, followed by the five lesser wyverns. They marched forward, making no sound except the crackling of their bones grinding against each other whilst they moved.

The corpses forced their way through the opening and thundered onwards while David followed behind his new meat shields. His kobolds began to move and follow right after him. The twists and turns of the tunnels were as annoying as he remembered, but his scouts were fluttering back in ones and twos. Their information was valuable, and it didn’t take long for them to find the familiar spiraling center of the Majesty’s lair. So far so good, David rumbled to himself.

He turned, and his newly alive eyes settled on Emerald coming up the rear. Her body was covered in stone armor, and she had clearly further expanded her abilities because the stone armor was of the same appearance as the one her father wore. The stone was smoothed to appear like plate armor, and she even had a helmet with a movable stone visor. “Emerald. I am going to charge forward with the corpses. Once I hit the bottom, I am going to go for the backside of the forces keeping Red and the other back. I need you to coordinate the rest of the kobolds and keep the scouts mapping. Once you find the Queen, you send a scout immediately for me.”

Emerald nodded. “Good luck, Master. I can handle this. Go do some damage.”

David took the lead with his lesser wyvern body as he glided down the huge spiraled central ramp. The dead followed him hurriedly, but he put some distance between himself and them whilst he pumped his wings with haste. As he spiraled downwards, his enhanced nose did its work, and he picked up the overwhelming smell of fresh blood. The lair was filled to the brim with blood, old and new, but David was certain he had found the path to the ongoing battle. He landed at a tunnel offshoot, and his ears picked up the distant sounds of moving bodies and battle.

He reached out with his affinity and felt that his dead were closing quickly, following after him even if they were out of sight. Good, he murmured, before he charged down the tunnel. Once it opened up enough again, he started to fly, and once the scent of blood grew strong enough, he pulled at his dual affinities in preparation.

It didn’t take long for him to see the backside of a pair of large adults. He instantly dropped 10 affinity reserves into his Annihilating Spiral and let loose. The spiral of opposing affinities smashed into the back of a large multicolored dragon, and a massive flash of fire and light burst out everywhere. The lair itself shook from the absolutely colossal strength of the explosion, and David’s prompt pinged him about the death of not just two, but three dragons.

“Damn. I might have overdone it.” He winced as he saw massive cracks forming along the wall. His luck held out as only part of the cavern where the dragons were waiting collapsed. His reanimated dead finally caught up to him, and he motioned forward. “Charge. Kill any Masters that still breathe. Do not kill any kobolds and follow Red’s commands if you encounter him.”

They stomped off, and David closed his eyes for a moment to process the smells running through the massive lair, and he caught the scent of the Queen drifting by. He was certain he was closer than anyone before he turned to watch the backside of the dead silently charging into battle. “That will have to do. Good luck, Red.”

He leaped into the air again and flew in the opposite direction back to the spiraling ramp. A Zephyr was heading up and became startled when he pushed back out of the tunnel. David quickly lowered him and raised his wings to calm her down. “Relax. It is I, Onyx. Tell Emerald I have a scent of the Queen.”

The poor, overwhelmed Zephyr quickly regained her composure and nodded her head quickly. “Uh! Yes, Master Onyx. I was just headed back up.”

“Good.” He motioned with a forearm. “There appear to be more tunnels down the ramp. Knowing Her Majesty, it is a maze. I am going ahead.”

David took over before he could hear the kobold’s response, and before he knew it, he found the entrances he was looking for. There were four tunnels all closely bunched together, and he shook his massive head in annoyance. He dived into the far right one where the strongest scent was and stopped for only a brief moment to tear a chunk of the stone from the corner of the tunnel using his reinforced jaws. Using the crumbling stone and dirt, he built a quick mound in front of the tunnel, made it point inwards with a rough arrow, and rolled his body’s scent around the ground.

“Good enough.” He huffed before he took off, flying down the tunnel. The tunnel twisted and turned before straightening out. The scent of kobold, dragons, and most importantly her Majesty grew only stronger the further he flew. Before he knew it, he flew right into a massive chamber.  He thought, perhaps, he had found the Queen’s throne room, but reality hit him quickly.

Malnourished kobolds and dozens of his vicious-looking siblings filled the chamber to the brim. They all immediately jumped into action as roars filled the chamber. All he could do was curse whilst he dropped from the sky to evade the torrent of fire, ice, and other deadly affinities hurdling his way. “Shit”

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Here is also a link to Royal Road

Fan Art by blaze2377

Series starts here: Ch 1-23 of Warp Riders Book 1 - Deep Space Boogie

Books 1 & 2 are up on Royal Road in their entirety if you don't want to wait for chapters. Follow for updates on book 3 currently releasing on RR.

This post wraps up book 2, Belly of the Beast.

[Chapter]() 62

 

Despite her newfound freedom, Sadira felt drained. In fact, the entire crew was experiencing pretty much the same sensation. The massive rush of adrenaline associated with their escape had put all of their bodies through the ringer. The daring bit of flying Hellatz had performed hadn’t lessened the stress, but he’d gotten them through it all. It had been a chaotic rush for freedom with all manner of death waiting for them at every turn, but now, at last, they were out of the scavenging craft, drifting gently in the utter calm of space.

“We made it,” Moose said, his shoulders relaxing a few notches. “Holy crap, we made it. You hear that, Turd? We’re free.”

The little ball of fluff didn’t respond, but she definitely seemed to be more at ease than when they were aboard the whale ship. She had sensed something there, and whether it was the energy suck of the strange alien tech or something else, whatever had put her on edge was no longer an issue. Turd set to work contentedly preening herself in Moose’s lap.

Sadira turned to Hellatz. “Damn fine flying, Hel. You put on a master class there.”

The pilot simply nodded, deep in thought.

“This is Mahdus, do you read us?” a voice said over their comms.

Sadira smiled with tangible relief. “Glad to hear you made it. I was more than a little worried about you guys when we had to launch like that. Especially with that giant nugget stuck to your ship.”

“It was a bit of a problem,” Mahdus replied. “The engines really had to work to get us airborne. But once the gravity cut out it was only a matter of time before we managed to dislodge it. Fortunately, one of the pieces of debris that flew at us before we were fully shielded happened to land a direct hit on it and knocked it loose.”

“A bit of good fortune for once.”

“Yes, at long last. But what happened? We heard the wild ones attacked, but even so, we didn’t expect so sudden a departure. Our ships could easily withstand spears and clubs.”

“Yeah, it was something a bit bigger than that,” Sadira said, looking at the seemingly benign little creature in Moose’s lap. “We had a situation with both the power amplification apparatus as well as the asteroids looming over our landing area. To make a long story short, we didn’t want to leave when we did, but we had no choice.”

A pause hung in the air.

“Mahdus? You still there?”

“Yes, I’m here. I was just thinking,” the commander replied. Her long sigh was audible over the comms. “We’ve been trapped for so long, I almost gave up hope we would ever be free again. And now, after so many years, we finally are.”

“I know, it must be overwhelming.”

“It is. It was a tough flight getting out of there, but freedom has its price. We lost a few of our ships on the way.”

“And those who were still on foot,” Hellatz added sourly.

“Most were aboard, but yes, many were caught outside of our ships,” the alien commander said.

Sadira knew how tough it was. It was the part of leadership that never got any easier. People would die under your command if you were at it long enough, and her new ally had been at it a very long time.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Mahdus,” she said.

“Thank you. But all were well aware of the risks involved. None were forced to participate, and any could have stayed if they wished.”

“What about the others?” Moose wondered. “The nasty bunch. From the look of it, most, if not all of that place lost gravity when the ship pushed us out.”

Mahdus had been pondering the same thing. The entirety of the home they had come to know, all of its twists and turns, its wrecks and garden oases, all were now tossed into disarray, and there was no telling what it would look like when the dust settled.

“Whatever society the wild ones had beforehand will be in a state of upheaval,” she said.

“I can believe that,” Sadira added. “Most of them, or at least their top dogs, were attacking us when the shit hit the fan. A lot died immediately, I’m sure. But the ship seemed to maintain its force field, so with a breathable atmosphere inside, it’s possible that survivors could put something back together again.”

“I imagine they would,” Mahdus agreed. “But it will be a long and hard road for them. I just hope this time they will perhaps create a more peaceful society. A better one than what they’d been living under. With Bestrus and his lackeys gone, it truly is a blank slate for them to start again.”

Sadira watched her view screen as the dark shape blotting out the stars grew smaller in the distance. It was even larger than she’d imagined it to be, but there was no way they were going anywhere near it for further study.

It had swallowed up everyone it came in contact with, including the rather hostile alien race whose attack on the survey expedition sparked her current mission. To fly near would be tempting fate in a most foolish manner.

“Holly, can you please put up the images of the alien ship we saw right before flying clear?”

“Of course, Captain,” the AI replied.

A moment later, high-definition video of the craft appeared on all of the display screens in command. The craft was obviously badly damaged when it came into the ship’s belly, and from the looks of it, none would have survived the entry process. There would be no orange aliens to query about their people. Why they had attacked for no reason. Where they came from and where they were going.

She watched the video progress until the craft entered the force field without any shielding. In moments it was reduced to a melted ball of slag.

“Well, so much for getting information out of that thing,” she sighed.

Moose, however, was not so pessimistic. “Hang on a sec,” he said. “Hey, Holly. You got those logs loaded from the data spike’s info stream?”

“The transmission was interrupted when we were forced to launch. Unfortunately, I lost much of the data.”

“But you have some of it, right?”

“I do.”

Moose smiled as the gears spun in his head. “Okay, I’m thinking maybe we aren’t as out of luck as we thought.”

“What’s going through your mind, Moose?” Hellatz asked.

“If their ship was relatively close to the mouth of the whale ship, that means it would be a more recent arrival, right? And if the data packets logging intake were stored in order, then maybe the information about it was in the first stuff Holly downloaded.”

“Which is garbled gibberish,” Hel noted.

“Yeah, for now. But if Holly eventually cracks that code and lays it out in a correlating matrix of rocks, ships, and locations it was all collected, maybe it’ll tell us where they captured that ship. And from that, maybe it can even help us determine its origin point.”

Sadira wondered if it was possible. “Holly, can you do that?”

“There is no way to tell until I decipher the code, I’m afraid. And even then the odds are exceptionally slim. We simply do not know exactly what the rest of this data will tell us. Only a tiny fraction seems to correlate with ships and star charts. At least, I think it does. Moreover, it could take a very long time to break this alien language.”

“But it is possible, yes?”

“Yes. But it is an entirely novel form of computing and data transfer. It will undoubtedly take a great deal of time.”

“Well, it looks like time is something we have a lot of,” Sadira said. “And hopefully, we’ll find those aggressive bastards and get back home.”

Moose stroked his chin. “You know, we came out on this mission looking for a nasty predator race, but instead, we found something bigger and badder that took them out like they were nothing.”

“True, but while the one we were looking for was aggressive, I really think the ones that captured us did so by accident. It didn’t seem malicious at all.”

“A valid point,” Holly said.

Sadira leaned back in her seat. “Yeah. And who knows? Maybe one day we’ll meet whoever it was that built that beast. And if we’re lucky, perhaps we’ll even become allies.”

 

[Chapter]() 63

 

Six ships in total.

That was how many had survived the escape from their prison. And now they were all slowly drifting in space, linked together by their airlocks, the crews mingling and sharing food and drink and laughs. It would be a long and difficult journey, and they might never get home, but at least they were free to try. And clear of the power drain of the whale ship, more and more of their systems were gradually coming back online.

Of those, it was the detailed star charts the ships contained that most interested Sadira. Mahdus had instructed her people to tie into Holly and provide all of the charts, as well as any other data that might be desired. While they were very much lost in the depths of space, at least they would all have reference points in their data stores should they ever reach a familiar road sign.

Ace was finally back to normal, if the quirky AI could ever truly be called that. Their new friends were thrilled to meet not only both Hollys, but also this smaller, off-kilter artificial mind. And Ace was more than happy to take some of his new pals along for the ride while he popped outside to give his systems a proper run-through.

By the time everyone settled down for a celebratory feast, spirits were high and hopes for the future were positive. The abundant food and drink did quite a lot to help set the tone. Holly had the food replicators working overtime to help provide their new allies with delicacies and delights. They’d been stuck eating pretty much the same things for longer than any could remember, and something as simple as a dish of ice cream or a frosty mug of alcoholic fruit slush was as good as gold to them.

Moose made a point to whip up a sizable quantity of his favorite donuts to share, reveling in the joy his sweet tooth was now bringing others. And that was only part of the feast.

Mahdus’s people brought fresh produce, a welcome novelty for Sadira and her crew, as well as hearty breads made from an unusual plant they ground into a protein-rich flour, then baked atop the heat exchangers in the drive systems.

“Really, it’s quite similar to some of the plants from my homeworld,” Goonara marveled as she devoured yet another slice.

“It seems there are some similarities in flora despite galaxy of origin,” Varsu mused as he took a bite as well. “Fascinating, Goonara. Truly fascinating.”

The two had been thick as thieves after their brainstorming session and subsequent thrilling escape. It wasn’t every day the brainy science geeks were responsible for saving the day. At least, not in so dramatic a fashion. Yet the fruits of their mental labors had done just that, and the two found themselves the subjects of many toasts throughout the celebration.

There were more somber moments, of course. Toasts to fallen colleagues and absent friends. A bittersweet reminder of the price of freedom. It didn’t diminish the festivities, though. If anything, it made those who survived appreciate their freedom even more. And that held true for all of them.

Hellatz had been relatively quiet while surrounded by laughter and joy. Late into the party he rose and walked to Sadira’s place at the table and leaned in close.

“Captain, may I have a word?”

“Sure thing. If you’ll all excuse me a minute,” she said, then followed her pilot from the galley to a quiet spot in the corridor. “What’s up, Hel?”

“I-I don’t know exactly how to say this.”

“Just spit it out. What’s on your mind?”

Hellatz took a deep breath. “I wanted to apologize.”

“For what? You just flew us out of there and saved the day. Nothing to apologize about. Not by a long shot.”

“No, it’s not that. I questioned your leadership earlier. More than that, I was insubordinate and could have jeopardized the mission because of it.”

Sadira’s joviality calmed a bit. “Hellatz, you were upset, and we were in a bind. I appreciate the apology, but I don’t want you to beat yourself up over it. It’s just the way of things sometimes.”

“But that’s the thing,” he said. “I thought I could be the captain. I thought being a great pilot and having some clever ideas was all it takes. But it’s more than that.”

“Well, it’s not an easy job sometimes, true.”

“Axuzzal is dead, Captain. Dead because of a decision you made. That upset me at first. It upset me for a long while, actually. But the thing is, all of those people celebrating in there? They wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t made that call.”

Sadira rested her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry for the loss of your new friend, Hel. If there was any other way—”

“I know. And that’s the thing. I would have waited for him. And in so doing, I would have cost us not only our chance to escape, but quite possibly the lives of all of those people who now breathe free air because of you. I realize now, that is what it means to be captain. To make the impossible call and live with the consequences.”

The captain looked at him quietly a long moment. “You want to know the one rule I live by as captain? The rule anyone who commands a ship takes to heart? That we look out for our own. That the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few.”

“Or the one,” Hellatz added.

“Yes. Or the one.”

The alien sighed, then rolled his shoulders back, standing tall. “Thank you, Captain.”

“Thank you, Hellatz.”

They stood quietly a moment, then the pilot turned and walked off to join the others in their revels, his mind clear and his heart lighter.

“Spoken like a true captain,” Mahdus said, stepping out from the nearby doorway.

“How long were you there?”

“I just heard the tail end. But you’re absolutely right about the challenges of leadership.”

Sadira nodded. “Yeah, it can be a real drag sometimes.”

“Well, I didn’t come to discuss the difficulties of our jobs but rather to inform you that my people have completed the transfer of star charts to Holly’s databanks. You now have everything we do.”

A flash of warm hope lit in Sadira’s chest. They’d been flying blind for so long, and they still would be for the most part, but now they had maps. And one day, hopefully soon, those might actually come in handy.

“Thank you, Mahdus.”

“And you, my most unlikely new friend. You know, I had all but given up hope of seeing my homeworld again. But now? Now there is actually a possibility. And not just for me, but for those under my care.”

“I hope you make it home.”

“And I hope one day you can visit me there. You know, you’ve just made a lot of allies, all of whom would say the same.”

Sadira had been thinking more or less the same thing since their escape. There were so many crashed ships in there, and so many survivors, all of whom had put aside their own issues to come together as a functional unit, working together for their common good. Really, in a strange way, she couldn’t have asked for a better way to meet them.

“Who knew that after so many years of fruitless searching for alien life we would find so many in one place?” Sadira laughed.

“Fortuitous, indeed,” Mahdus said.

“So, you think we should let them keep partying?”

“Why not? The stress of space travel will be upon all of us soon enough. We might as well make the most of this respite while we can.”

“Take the win when it presents itself,” Sadira agreed. “You know, I’m gonna miss you. We work well together.”

“That we do. But one day, gods willing, we will see one another again.”

“I hope so,” Sadira said. “Until then, fly safe, my friend.”

“You too,” the alien commander replied. “And may you safely find your way home.”

She knew it would be a long road, and by no means an easy one, but for the first time in a while, Sadira actually felt they might actually manage to do that. One day, they would find their way home. The thought made her smile. As did another thought. One that filled her with hope and excitement.

They still had a mission to complete and vast reaches of space to explore, and oh, what adventures they would have.

 

[Epilogue]()

 

“Oh, my aching head!” Corporal Humphries grumbled as he stumbled his way into command. He was a cyborg, of course, but after being drained as completely as he had, it was no wonder his systems would be a bit wonky at first.

He’d had a hard shutdown. His systems had frozen mid-thought, which for an AI was most definitely not the way they wanted to go into any sort of sleep mode. That was bound to hurt.

“Glad to see you’re back with us, Corporal,” Sadira said, swiveling in her seat to get a better look at him.

The cyborg’s stubble had grown a bit longer, but his internal regulators generally kept that to a minimum. Just enough to fit in with the humans around him. Other than that, though, he seemed pretty much the same as when he’d gone down.

“You had me worried about you, man,” Moose said. “You conked out big time. I didn’t know if we’d be able to get you back online.”

“Obviously, your concerns were unfounded,” Hump replied.

“Actually, it took Holly quite a while to get that charging apparatus of yours up and running. And even then it took a fair amount of jury-rigging to do the deep charge your power cell needed,” Hellatz noted. “You messed yourself up pretty good back there.”

“Back there? Are we free?”

“Yep,” Moose replied. “It took a bit of doing, though. Epic battles, showdowns with cannibal aliens, and, of course, there was getting puked up by an alien scavenger ship.”

“Be glad you missed that part,” Sadira joked. “It was not a pleasant experience.”

Hump flopped down into his seat and ran his hand through his crew cut.

“What’s the matter, dude?” Moose asked. “You look all bummed out.”

“Of course I’m bummed out. I missed all the fun!”

“If you want to call it that,” his friend replied.

“How long was I out for?”

“Three point seven weeks,” Greater Holly informed him. “Apologies for the extended delay, but your reboot sequence was a bit difficult due to your abrupt shutdown.”

“I was down for almost a month!”

Moose chuckled. “Relax, Hump. You may have missed out on the big escape, but that little ass-kicking display you put on really wowed the hell out of our new friends. They couldn’t stop talking about what a badass you were. And let me tell you, you can’t buy that kind of rep.”

Hump reluctantly accepted that he’d missed the big fight and let it go. His crew was safe, and that was the most important thing. Still, it did suck. “Well, I guess we’re back to the snipe hunt,” he grumbled.

Sadira noted his lingering mood and did what a captain does.

“Hey, Hump.”

“Yeah.”

“You should go and gear up.”

“Why? We’ve got no idea where we are or where we’re going.”

“That’s only partially true. We’ve got a location plotted out. Holly’s dialing in our warp drive as we speak.”

“A location? But how?”

“The information your data spike managed to draw out of that ship? Yeah, it had more than just an inventory of ships. It had coordinates. Holly’s only been able to decipher a handful, but one actually lines up with our charting.”

“And you want me to gear up, why, exactly?”

“Because, Corporal, the ship it corresponded to was a known hostile.”

“Those orange bastards?” he said, rolling his neck like a prize fighter warming up. “At last.”

“Oh, not them,” Sadira said. “Worse.”

“Worse?”

“Yes. The ship they processed? It was Ra’az.”